No more recycling, new material! Bigger turns! More videos! More screenshots!
Galaad said:
bloodsucker said:Are u joking? Yesterday I was looking in your YouTube account to see if you had the complete streams...
+1
You're giving us gold here.
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235
Dessa pushes to the red tent. This fight sucks. Any fight vs Enchanters sucks when you have limited options. If they cast certain spells, you have to reload. In this case: haste, slow, cure have to be avoided. I kill them first because I hate extra RNG. Extra morale/luck was nice but not required.
Keep going, simple kiting ahead vs no-morale guys.
Then more Enchanters... need to avoid the same spells. Forgetfulness+Slow and they're easy pickings. Place the cheapest units on the outside of your protection corner... when the AI has a choice to chase 2 units at the same distance, it will go for the more expensive: Pegasus here. Morale kills some fodder but who cares?
Take a second to grab this armor (mostly for the experience, there are several of these available).
Finally the red tent is visited, without slowing the progress in Mongolia. It's possible that progress in Barbarian lands was slowed down a bit but it's rather theoretical at this point. You're welcome to prove my theory
Now Dessa town portals and exchanges artifacts and army.
GoW goes to Forest to grab the Gold Dragons that are still waiting... they are used in a few more days.
Now in Unknown, swap the troops+arts again to Marion.
Marion is 1 step away from the Rally Flag, basically she gets +400-100 = 300 extra movement for the turn using this placement. Meet up with Christian.
Christian takes the army and clears these creatures before giving the arts+troops to someone else. The whole idea is to clear the path for Marion who will move ahead... without substantial army or artifacts.
Dessa uses his remaining movement to pick up some stats and missing spells (like level 5 spells) before meeting up with Maximus in Barbaria. Give him the Tome of Earth and some extra movement.
Now Maximus can go pick up the Cornucopia!
Kyrre pushes on in Mongolia and kills a Khan. Darklord can't count....almost. Summon boat because Expert navigation means water tiles are cheaper to travel this way.
Kill this guy to get freebies and open the quest gate for the last portion of Mongolia.
Auxiliary heroes get close to towns for future "town portal-ing" or to restore spell points.
236
Marion goes to the river and boards the ship with her last step (was planned). Having killed Xyron already proves useful for this part.
Maximus casts waterwalk before stepping on Cursed Ground and picks up the Cornucopia. It is equipped on an Auxiliary hero for now for the nice bonus.
Meet up with... Isra!
Before using Isra, Kyrre eliminates Teal for good. Nothing too difficult since the AI is pretty stupid and doesn't free its shooters or haste the right troops
And with this, the Mongolia line has unofficially concluded. Isra finally gets a chance at some experience after getting +300 movement.
This screenshot is slightly inaccurate, Isra brings along 1 Pegasus, 2 Gnolls and Sharpshooters only (fixed later).
Stop here to win the scenario. GG
Exp! With only 40 spell points (and 12 must be kept for town portal), the fight has to be accurately done.
-no forcefield on turn 1
-don't lose the speed advantage of pegasus
-Turn 2 cast forcefield and lead some Wyverns away from immediate reach
-Turn 3 cast haste to regain speed advantage
-kill away. If no morale, the last wyvern dies on the turn where forcefield vanishes.
Isra shows her purpose: farming gold.
What, don't see it? Ok let's see... bring Isra to King's Castle and make room in the city.
Hire another fallen god and give him the skellies.
Buy as many level 1 UN-UPGRADED troops as you can and then visit Princetown. Upgrade for free
Go to Barbaria, ???, Profit!!!
Each upgraded pikeman gives extra 10 gold. Obviously the real gold materializes out of thin air in the form of skeletons.
God of earth has done his job for this week and will chill in Mongolia in the garrison until he is needed again, later. Tome of Earth is now on Kyrre.
Dessa brings minimal troops to find the hidden Statue of Legion which I 100% could not find the first time I played this.
Stop the night in the gem pond, leaving the slow troops behind.
Christian goes back in the Barbarian lands (wasn't he just there?).
Kyrre grabs some missing spells as well and finishes in Unknown to refresh spell points.
GoW brings the stuff to the now rested Andra.
Now Andra can finish development. Well, it's a two-turn trek (like red-tent and Cornucopia) but since everyone has finished using the Tome of Earth and is out of MP, it's like the tome of earth is not unavailable at all.
And just now... I figured a way to make a video summary of the turn. It's not perfect because hero portraits don't update properly but it is supplemented by a wall of text and screenshots before.
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With Mongolia out of the picture, next update can go back to focus on one goal with some smaller sidequests at the same time... less work for me, hurray!
Salamandre said:Hehe, sell skeletons, nice idea. keep the good work, waiting for next.
Yes, very nice touch but it was just for fun, right? I didn't went that far but I remember I wasn't short of money, I just didn't had enouch good creatures where to spend it and you have more then 200000 gold.
I spend 260k for Archangels, Devils, Zealots, Sharpshooters and fodder (Pegasi) at 241 - more for the event troops. Weekly income is about 230k including the 10% interest at the moment. Also when you reach the north east part of the underground, there's a large need for resources (300k+).
It's not a huge issue but having the extra freedom is nice and simplifies later combat. I go way overkill later though
I will post the next update tomorrow or at the latest Monday. Thanks for your interest!
Seeing unusual things on maps we know by heart is fun. Several heroes and selling creatures is not so common in tew maps, given that he obviously tries all he can to force us to play solo.
____________ Era II mods and utilities
Marion sails to the Black Market and buys another pair of gloves.
Dessa captures the Statue of Legion. Slow, Clone, Blind then double spell points.
Go back towards the main path of Barbaria and wait for Kyrre.
Meanwhile Andra completes development. In this position, cloned shooter goes 1 hex SE so don't place troops there. Easy combat for good experience.
Pick up another hat and then meet up with Kyrre. Tome of Earth goes to Kyrre, Andra sleeps.
Kyrre can now meet Dessa who's been waiting for a few moments...
Dessa grabs +1 Attack and visits the stables...well he will next turn, just get ready.
Kyrre will capture the "first" Stronghold next turn. Christian is sitting nearby and takes the Tome of Earth as well as portion of the troops+some artifacts.
Make a small stop to pickup the slowest troops available (3 movement or less) so that boarding ships = more movement.
Give everything to Maximus who goes to the recently unlocked sea.
Use a secondary hero to take the troops and artifacts (minus Tome of Earth) once Maximus is in the water. Maximus sails all the way toward the lighthouses and disembarks.
These are transferred to Isra who was left here last turn after swapping with God of Earth (sleeping in Mongolia).
Isra disembarks a few steps earlier to capture the second and last angel dwelling. Since she still lacks Expert Water Magic, use summon boat to cross the channel.
Don't forget to dismiss slow skeleton.
Next objectives:
-flag lighthouses
-defeat Cyclops King
Grabbing the lighthouses requires 2 steps:
-uncover the tiles under the fog and remove hidden encounters
-use waterwalk to flag the lighthouses
It can be done with a single hero but you waste time and keep troops/artifacts busy. This way, Isra will be left in the water with 1 Pegasus and Maximus brings back everything using Town Portal to avoid losing time.
The last lighthouse can't be captured right away unless spend 1 more day which I don't have.
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The playthrough is about to become a bit more linear as the main heroes will converge in the Barbarian lands. The Tome of Earth is required to open a quest guard so for a few days not much will happen to heroes that aren't in that area.... but that's for later.
Great. BTW, you mentioned before you had Marion with minimum army. I thought you were going to pick an army of Stronghold troops from an event I recall to be somewhere and was expecting to see that this turn. I am wrong?
I don't consider Gold Dragons as army, because I can't resurrect them. By the time I get the orb of vulnerability, there won't be enough of them to be worth my time.
So, they're fodder
In terms of army, I use either (or a combination):
-Archangels + Zealots
-Sharpshooters + fast troop
Anything else just doesn't grow fast enough in numbers to be of use (need to rely heavily on quest rewards and growth near the beginning). Sharpshooter growth is high thankfully!
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The Fortress/Stronghold army events are only available before the final fight vs. Caesar.
"Short" post. I've been using my free time to play, create and test instead
241
A new week comes, and with it a ton of town-portal. Because it's not vital to the rush, I'm not going to cover that portion in detail. It's basically using stationed heroes such as God of Earth to move around in order to hire everything.
Isra hires another Angel and goes back to the water. I will now be able to complete the Sharpshooter's bow. Sadly, the Spirit of Opression was not available on the map (or at least, not near areas that are close to where heroes need to pass by).
As I mentioned in the previous update, flagging the lighthouses is a job for 2 heroes. Isra plays the sea captain part - which conveniently provides extra experience and skeletons for gold. Slow+kite.
Isra moves all the way over there to clear the remaining events. There's another event-fight before the 4th lighthouse so it's not accessible at this time.
Now Maximus is able to flag the first 3 lighthouses.
Moreover, he takes the troops and artifacts from Isra before moving to Longbow.
Artifacts are swapped with Andra who will double spell points for later use. 1820 SP is pretty good for now!
Town portal back to Longbow and trade with GoW.
Now these towns must be visited to pick up new recruits. Stop by Mongolia and exchange the earth book with God of Earth who will use his movement points instead [not shown].
Kyrre captures the other Stronghold. It's a very easy fight with Blind, Forgetfulness and shooter blockers.
GoW towns portal there and trades with Kyrre. Then cast waterwalk and move to the main road. I make a transaction while there.
Kyrre now goes to double spell points. Troops and some artifacts go to Christian.
Now Christian goes to meet up with Dessa.
Don't forget to hit spacebar to visit the Stables. Swap everything except Tome of Earth. Finally Dessa can go to water using the Admiral's hat.
Big update coming in... this will conclude the previously stated objective of defeating Cyclops King... and a bit more.
242
Before Dessa comes ashore, Marion picks up the slow troops (<11) so that he will have as many movement as possible.
Marion can use these to pick up some resources but ultimately they go back to Dessa.
This fight requires most of the army to avoid excessive losses and is a large part of why I delayed the Barbaria conquest; losing sharpshooters would be devastating. The elixir of life makes the Goldies pretty tough and as I explained previously, I consider them as fodder.
After the fight, Marion takes back the slow Zealots to give Dessa more movement.
We can push on and find more Cyclopes.
This time the fight is easy as I cast Forgetfulness+slow to allow kiting.
Meanwhile, Isra starts heading towards the purple tent. Sadly, this artifact serves no purpose.
As you may recall from 241, Dessa had left the Tome of Earth with Christian and Kyrre had gone to double spell points. So, meet up and exchange numbers artifacts.
Now Kyrre starts following in Dessa's footsetps.
GoW had been left in Barbarian lands as well if you recall... in order to catch the Tome of Earth.
This way, they can both go their separate ways.
Now GoW trades with Maximus and Maximus goes to double spell points as well.
There's some more minor stuff going on but it isn't really worth showing.
243
Relatively uneventful turn (I like).
Marion exchanges some troops with Dessa again so that I can grab the black orb. Forcefield the dragons for easy fight.
The hidden Orb of Vulnerability...
The rest of the turn is shown as video summary. No other fight and very little is going on (calm before the storm uh?)
244
Biiig turn, both for fighting and for managing heroes/artifacts.
First, let's deal with Cyclopes King. Pass the quest guard with the black orb
Marion brings some troops to Dessa Archdevils and some serpent flies are missing from the second screenshot (mistake on my part). Now push on towards the Stronghold and kill the enemy.
Having Fire Magic on Dessa is essential here to kill the Cyclopes in 2 hits.
-The lucky morale is not needed, but Frenzy is
-AI will target alive troops it can reach even though a more juicy nearby blind stack is present
-fodder is left to die as I have tons of it
Isra goes left or she dies horribly.
This next shot really shows the power of high-level Logistics specialists. Kyrre has 4950 movement every turn.
Maximus goes to Mongolia with TP to meet an old foe, swap ToE (Tome of Earth).
GoE meets with Dessa and takes a good portion of the troops+artifacts. Pick up more Archdevils which I couldn't before.
Also a Pegasus from here:
Now chain everything to Andra.
Andra splits troops accordingly and starts a 23 minutes long fight. I really don't recommend watching the whole thing but these time-stamps are the most relevant portions: 0:00-1:30
8:45-9:00
20:00-21:00
-my single Archangel is not really useful
-slow and hope God of Air doesn't cast Cure, this can be achieved by leaving a few units on wait command
-I force the Archangels to close the Forcefield gap with unit placement: high value unit and the fact that AI doesn't like putting units next to each other
-blind the Archangel blocking the forcefield
-blinding the other Archangel is not necessary (clone costs a lot of spell points as well and easily killed) but it adds a lot of management which meant the video would be even longer
-kiting is possible but again, for time purposes, I went with Forcefield
-the single Dragonfly lets me dispel single targets of their Air Shield (~90 spell power takes forever to wear off)
-Disrupting Ray to lower defense. Terrain gives expert Air to everyone
-Frenzy to finish with a (unnecessary) bang
-massive experience means Andra can now generate a crazy amount of spell points
Alright, so Andra now grabs the next town. I messed up these screenshots a bit (left part is missing) but the essential is there. Most events are tagged to Maximus so it's always funny when it's said to another hero
Don't take detours and skip what is in the way.
Quick combat the city capture.
Andra has just enough movement left (475). Go to King's Castle and make room in the garrison.
This is a little trick I will use for several days to come as I hire more heroes from King's Castle and send them on errands: hire Genghis Khan.
As you can see from this screenshot, he lacks Wisdom and Earth Magic so he can never be a combat hero or even a good placeholder. However, his speed and some terrain allow him to do something no other hero can: he can hasten the trip from King's Castle to the water near Princetown in a single turn - without requiring that the Tome of Earth is stuck in some random place.
Cast waterwalk and move all the way to Princetown. Later on I will give him Boots of Levitation to do this...
Andra TP's to Princetown as well and gives everything to GK.
Now move GK down to the Magic Plains so that he can cast Town Portal at expert level.
I hire another hero with Earth Magic (God of Fire), take his troops/artifacts and GK is dismissed for now. (There are too many heroes away from towns)
Finally, bring everything to Maximus who's been sipping his tea in Mongolia calmly.
At this point, the 3 main heroes as well as a placeholder (Marion) have converged near Cyclops and will begin the linear portion I've been mentioning.
Swap with Marion... who goes to swap with Dessa.
At long last, Dessa moves ahead...
Turn summary.
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Next portion of the game is more linear as the Tome of Earth will be traded to pass a quest guard. Once it is re-acquired, it'll be quite a different story. I'll stop here before repeating myself any further.
That GoA fight was one of many improvements I made to the run. This is one advantage of having many developed heroes, the army can be shifted to many places during a short time span and facilitates the upcoming logistics.
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These turns are both simple and complicated. 5 out of 8 heroes have pretty straight-forward movement. Maximus, Kyrre and Dessa are a mess as I need them to move forward as much as possible to avoid losing time. There's a lot of trading, boarding and disembarking
245
You may have noticed that by the end of 244, I had 0 wood left... just a way to circumvent "cheap" events.
Isra moves toward the purple tent. She couldn't make it in 2 days so I had her grab a few things along the way.
GoE is now what I call a placeholder. While the 3 main heroes are off on an adventure, these heroes start moving toward future objectives. Seeing as I only have 1 way of using Town Portal, it is crucial to do this in order to save time. In this case, I want 4 heroes for the labyrinth (3 placeholders, 1 Town Portal) which will happens in some time.
GoW and Christian go in opposite directions, Christian follows GoE's footsteps and GoW goes to the newly captured Rampart. Two reasons for this switch:
1- Christian has expert Navigation and GoW lacks it - this means the water portion is done in one day instead of 2 (I only have 1 Necklace of Ocean Guidance, it's on GoE)
2- GoW has a lot more spell points that Christian and can be useful to town portal.
Now, the messy part.
Marion brings some slow troops to Dessa. Then trade with Maximus.
Maximus then gives it to Kyrre.
Kyrre moves next to the water. Maximus takes back the slow troops and the Admiral's Hat.
Repeat this process to get both Maximus and Dessa in the water. Using a boat for this portion lets you visit the Fountain for extra movement.
Fast forward a bit to this situation:
Now it's disembarking time. You want only fast troops when going ashore.
Reverse of before, grab the slow troops and swap artifacts with the person in the water.
Once more.
The end result is that Maximus and Dessa are pretty much out of movement but Kyrre is still going strong (since she was a lot closer and I only used her once to swap.) Move on after making sure you have Tome of Earth, Tome of Water and Admiral's Hat.
Easy fight, QC.
No more OP artifacts
There are many events here which remove your spell points, that's one reason why I doubled them before this portion.
When you explore new areas in RPG maps, use the "V" key often, it helps a lot to identify hidden passages. Also always be suspicious of Rogue dwellings.
246
Isra ignores mapmaker's suggestion. It really depends on where Merlin is... in this case he was too far.
GoE uses the Necklace of Ocean Guidance for a quick trip.
GoW goes to sleep in the Rampart.
Christian starts following GoE.
Marion stops near the water, she'll get across with Waterwalk next day.
Back to the action...
Kyrre moves to the dead end for rewards.
She now goes back to this hut (not Dessa as picture incorrectly shows) and you get to exchange for the Sentinel's Shield.
Underground gates are cool: you can exchange army/artifacts without spending movement points. Maximus takes the boots from Dessa, this helps a lot for the next day.
Kyrre&Dessa meet to bring back the Sentinel's shield closer to Maximus so that he can pass this guard:
Ignore the seer huts for now, we'll leave that to Kyrre.
Dessa uses remaining movement to head deeper in the wasteland.
Not pictured: Andra boards the ship near Princetown.
247
Now Andra, with 3 lighthouses and Navigation, can do this trip in one turn.
Christian boards the ship...
GoE keeps going, ignore stables, not worth losing 2000 movement waiting for them.
As I had said, Merlin is too slow:
Marion slowly follows the 3 lead heroes.
Finally, recuperate the Admiral's Hat with Kyrre. The second hut is ignored, I have no further use of the Tome of Water.
More embarking/disembarking logistics:
etc...
Maximus finds another pair of gloves
Both Kyrre and Maximus reach the next shore, but Kyrre is pretty spent.
Maximus has just enough movement to capture both Castles.
Many new followers, these are crucial in the coming fights because the enemy's starting troops are high and our towns haven't really managed to provide many new troops.
And this lets you reach the second Castle.
More troops!
Finish with ~100 movement, visiting the Fountain a second time was crucial as well as taking the Boots from Dessa.
This represents a small portion of the expenses coming up in the next few days - this is why a Necromancer is necessary otherwise the upcoming enemies would be a lot more difficult.
Dessa could chill... or grab an important piece of the Armor of the Damned. Not really a difficult choice. Having a lot of spell points proved very important otherwise you're wasting time coming back here. First fight is easy, slow, clone.
Set up for the more difficult fight... well it's pretty easy too if you do it this way. 3030 damage to all enemies each cast.
I tried doing summary turns again but for some reason the game didn't like when I have more than one hero in the water in an area, it kept showing bare land like this:
No clue what's up with that.
311
New month, what should be expected?
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Thankfully, they didn't prevent completion. to Safe-SoD mod.
Salamandre said:Bro, you had 3 days vacation, now please back to work? You promised us to show how to win this map in 4 months, I won't let you go away so easy!
Come on, this was my preferred daily read.
4 months?
I've been away from home for work and will be so until next Monday, saves are at home. In the mean time, please enjoy this custom art with some text to satisfy your daily readings
Somewhere in time
Dessa uses the mighty Angelic Alliance to slay a mean dragon. Doing so will provide useful experience and unlocks the internet cookie quest.
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Actually the fewonly Azure Dragons in TEW2 will not be fought by KyrreDessa... but it's ART, ok!?!
They expect you to win the map at the end of month 4.
Give a show to them and win at m3w4d7!
The surprize of the artist. ____________
"I heard the latest HD version disables playing Heroes. Please reconsider."-Salamandre
Two months have elapsed so far, let's see what the third brings to the table (besides Gremlins everywhere).
311
Today we get the Tome of Earth back
But this means this is the last day of the linear portion
Let's start with Dessa and Marion. Dessa buys more Knowledge before the two heroes meet for trading.
The trades include: 2nd pair of Gloves to Marion (recall that a new pair was obtained in the Wreckage by Maximus) and Zealots to Marion. I want Dessa to have as much speed as possible... I hope you will appreciate how small the margin for error is starting from now up until 316. I have three sets of saves from 312 to the end of the game. Before I make more updates I have to clear things up a bit, so that's why there's only 1 day in this update.
Anyhow, back to 311...
Now Dessa can move riiiiight in front of the Black Border Guard, no movement left!
Marion follows up but movement is short.
Next up: Andra. Andra had landed last turn (1-turn trip) and walks up to the Stables before moving closer to Longbow.
GoE and Christian keep moving towards Mongolia. It's a long trek but there's nothing else to do anyway
This leaves Kyrre, Maximus and a bunch of town-portals with heroes that include Isra.
Kyrre visits the Stables
She then moves forward a bit (step inside the Hill Fort to save movement) to prepare a meeting with Maximus.
Maximus buys a slow pikeman and then trades with Kyrre: grab the Admiral's Hat.
Move Kyrre a bit forward and then Maximus can find some followers and recuperate the book of Town Portal.
Dismiss the slow pikeman...
...and go ashore wherever is nearest.
Now is a good time to buy and upgrade some of the new troops.
I'm going to spare you the exercise (you can see some of the acrobatics in the video summary) and just show some of the key things to do:
-use random heroes with Earth Magic to use town portal and collect compliant creatures in the new Castle area
-Cavaliers are upgraded for free at Stables
-sell whatever Castle troops that are not Angel, Sharpshooter material, or Zealot.
-try to upgrade to sharpshooters (try as in: not enough gold)
In the end, Maximus brings back the sharpshooters and some fodder Pegasi to Kyrre. Transfer the Admiral's Hat and Tome of Earth - no need to bring along a single slow troop as well because Kyrre isn't as restricted movement-wise.
Move ahead and open the Purple Border Guard. Thanks Isra!
Kyrre gets teleported just north of Merlin (I really like these kinds of connecting passages in between other areas, something The Lone Knight really excelled at). Call a ship and navigate westward.
Summary!
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I hope you will be as happy as Kyrre with this update.
Day 312 was pretty difficult to get right, it took me 38 saves with all the replays, so that will also be a single-day update.
With the so-called linear part over, I can flood with tons of hero meetups and town-portals!
This thread is pages long: 
posted October 02, 2015 06:17 AM
