I thought you're talking from the point of view of the guys that made the original AI. Of course if you're talking from the point of view of the mapmaker battles are customizable. But you wouldn't want it to never be able to learn Blind, like they did with Berserk, I guess.
There's usually a way to abuse the AI. Of course, you can purposely make it very difficult so that the human needs a huge army to even get through a certain fight but that typically means just running from town to town to hire troops over several weeks.
Puzzles are more fun in my book
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324
KHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAN goes ashore.
Kill the Death God with Dessa... it's very easy when you have the bigger army
Next up, Isra clears the way to the Necro area. Power of Dragon Father to block enemy spells and pew pew pew all the enemy.
Swap with another Earth magic hero and sleep in King's Castle, swapping with Christian (was re-hired last turn).
Naga Queen swaps with Christian. [not shown]
Christian takes the army from Dessa and brings it to Maximus before going back to Kings Castle to swap with Naga Queen.
Now Maximus can forge ahead and kill RNGesus. Well, it's much more easy this time around so I can't really complain.
Pick up the vial of everpouring mercury and head north.
Naga Queen goes to Merlin's house and swaps with GoE.
GoE will now replace Andra... it's not that Andra couldn't get the job done, it's that I have one fewer day that I had anticipated so I replayed from here
Double SP with Andra. 3818... we're set.
Go to King's Castle, swap with Isra then catch a ship.
Since Isra is almost out of movement, find a sleeper hero - in Gateway this time.
Pick up the army (Naga Queen) then head to Still Water. Hire a slow dwarf.
Using the prepared chain from yesterday, send Sharpshooters, ADs, fodder and 1 Dwarf towards Kyrre. Longbow can go back to sleep in Still Water.
GoW runs to Kyrre and can TP out after. One important artifact is in Kyrre's backpack: Wizard's Well. It really makes a large difference.
Kyrre now begins to sail the Nile... such a long stretch of water.
Remember to get rid of the useless slow unit. Row row row your boat...
???
As I had said, GoW can TP out, go to Death and swap with Dessa.
Now this was part 1 of an important discovery, saving 1 whole day. Dessa needs to be level 44 and needs more SP.
More on this in a future update.
325
Dessa doubles up and flies to Longbow. Wait for Genghis.
Finally ashore, Genghis proves useful with his large movement pool. Even though he sucks from not having Earth Magic/Wisdom.
Do a quick swap with Dessa and send Dessa as a placeholder towards Still Water.
Genghis can step on the Magic Plains near Longbow to enable Expert Town Portal
Destination: Still Water [Rampart beyond God of Air]. Swap with Longbow. Even though GK is kind of a poor hero, having him in this location with a lot of movement makes him the best hero for the job I have in mind - trying to follow Dessa.... it's not easy.
Kill Tan. This is super easy and all these troops are fodder.
Maximus pushes on to the Necro lands. These guys are toast.
RNG strikes again. But no matter, no losses.
Finally, Kyrre comes ashore. Expert Navigation and Logistics specialty work very well together... this combination saved several days on the overall progress.
Thread happily along the path.... you'll find some weak dragons. In each case, Forcefield and shoot away. Resurrect the main fodder stack (you lose 1 Pegasus per fight).
There's a bunch of these fights which are identical which I won't show. Ignore everything along the path that isn't moving you forward.
Andra now begins the Super Swag Master objective: dig up the grail. As I said in a previous update, it should be possible to dig up the Grail earlier to coincide with the capture of the Conflux towns. This would give you full access to every spell and you could cakewalk the remainder of the map much more quickly than I am doing here. However, my feelings are that this is against the spirit of the map and so I am simply digging up the grail for the score.
There's some excess movement available so you can find goodies along the way.
There's some minor management going on, but you can see it in the summary video.
Summary & overview
###
Current objectives:
- dig up the grail
- kill Dragon King
- conquer Necro area
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Merging 2 posts together...
###
I was afraid I'd not have time for an update today. It turns out 326 is a very short day with not much going on, so here it is
326
Andra has spare movement before going ashore toward the grail.
Longbow will serve as a chain link toward Andra. To deal with RNG, I'm looking to bring an Azure Dragon... At first, this was a necessity due to the fact that Andra was going in there with only a stack of ~160 Cyclops and would rely on Armageddon to get the job done. Since it will no longer be the case, it isn't needed... but since I already worked it in before replaying, I kept the idea.
Dessa also has a bit of spare movement. Part 2 of the discovery mentioned in the last update is this: the quest guard blocking the way toward the Inferno area is diagonal movement. If I open it with another hero (who then moves out of the way), Dessa gains 41 movement (plus the 30 from an extra level = 71) which will make all the difference next turn. This second hero is, naturally, Genghis Khan.
Kyrre tries to reach the Dragon King. I suppose with some luck it should be possible to have him stand closer to us so that we can kill him on this day, but then it would require reworking everything else for timing.
Maximus stomps on the poor Necros (mapmaker's intention was that you go here before going to the Barbarian wilderness) because my army is a lot larger than theirs.
Tome of Earth had been left with Christian who swaps with Naga Queen.
Send Maximus in the water, he can capture an Azure Dragon next turn.
Go to Maximus and take everything.
Stomp on this necro, it's even easier. Cast slow, wait and kill.
Isra will finish off the Necros.
Deadwood trick then head south in the Necro area.
Summary
###
Next few turns are heavier, it may be a few days before I can do another update.
Big update. Wanted to make a new post but triple posting is frowned upon, I think. Hopefully you lurkers will notice the edit.
326 end of day
-congrats on using firebreath on yourself!
-also draw firebreath from the rusts onto the crystals
-terrain is advantageous and allows the sharpshooters to escape despite the morale hits from enemy
-maximize A+D before using Frenzy
-just enough movement to capture the town and free up the artifacts for Dessa. Didn't get to use Angelic Alliance for the fight but it wasn't necessary in the end
327
Use Genghis to open the quest guard (141 movement), then put him back.
Dessa replaces him in front of the now-gone quest guard with orthogonal movement (100 movement), this saves 41 movement total and will make an important difference.
Isra waterwalks to go crush his kin.
-army difference is staggering, no chance for enemy
-orange eliminated
Use Isra's remaining movement to swap with Naga Queen.
"Neela" can get the artifacts and sharpshooters from Kyrre.
Bring some troops to Maximus who's waiting near Frozen Cliffs.
Note, you should only give him fast troops so that when he comes ashore he has maximum movement (not as shown).
Equip the Admiral's Hat (from Kyrre) and come ashore.
Back to King's Castle, hire any hero with Navigation and give him the Admiral's Hat, Azure Dragon, 1 AD and 1 Archmage.
This guy goes to the hero chain waiting in the water towards Andra.
Dismiss the chain.
Andra is now free to go after the grail, without fear of the Fear spell.
Hire another hero with Earth Magic, take troops/artifacts from Maximus.
Bring them to a hero with Earth, Logistics, Pathfinding: Christian.
Christian can bring troops and artifacts to Dessa's position.
Stop just above 200 movement point so you can town portal. Genghis does the rest of the chain.
Send Christian back to where he came from so that another Earth hero with movement has the Tome of Earth.
Now we can start heading to Inferno area. First, set up for the anti-magic garrison.
Angelic Alliance (and AotD) work within the anti-magic confines, morale isn't needed given the strength of the army. After the fight, set up for the fight vs. Efreeti garrison, bring minimum troops and all sharpshooters, then the fight is easy.
My original setup for the previous fight used Zealots, Master Gremlins, Ammo cart and 2 continuous forcefields because the Orb of Vulnerability&sharpshooters were stuck in the Dragon King area for the day. It was painful to say the least.
Dessa has just enough movement to make it to the Inferno town, and hide inside. The "36" remaining movement show how important it was to not have Dessa open the quest guard. Anyway, this allowed me to free up a hero slot for the transfers which would not have otherwise been possible. Advanced the finish date by 1 day!
Off-screen, I moved heroes, troops and artifacts a bit around, which brings us to a new hired hero, Fiur, having the tome of earth. Grab everything from Dessa and bring it to Maximus.
Kill the weak hero standing by.
Go back to Kings Castle afterwards, to another Earth hero.
Now, for this next part I need extra movement. For this exact purpose, I have left GoE 1 tile away from a Rally Flag.
Then GoE goes to Deadwood for the Oasis trick. Since he lacks Pathfinding, buy a Fly and leave the Titan behind.
GoE arrives in Tartarus with 3159 instead of 2800 movement points.
Off-screen the army was brought back here. Take some of it (screenshot is missing an Archmage).
Take a stroll in the park.
Well, well well... what do we have here?
Another fight!
-typical way of fighting Inferno in big RPG maps, with the exception that I have the Orb of Vulnerability.
-hide behind enemy lines and blind everything before killing them
-no need to wait an extra day for the diplomacy artifacts!
Rescue Kyrre from Darkburrow.
Since it's the last day of the week, Kyrre needs to be left in a town with Stables.
Marion was sleeping here, she can do some shopping before bringing some troops and Tome of Earth to GoW.
GoW has been set up with Gloves+Boots for maximum movement on 326.
Give him the diplomatic artifacts and a nice fat stack of AAs.
All roads lead to Rome, so does this one.
This part of the map is truly great, bringing you back to the start of The Empire of the World (1), with some slight differences.
Kill these guys, no need for people hiding at this stage...
..because they're slow and we can now re-visit the Fountain of Youth
Head west and end the day.
331
Catch a free town with a ton of new troops! Grab a second tome of earth and summon Kyrre for long distance travel. The video is pretty explicit, I don't need to explain much.
A "small" interlude, Andra gets on top of the grail. It's a long video, the only interesting part should be at 2:12 and 16:50.
All these troops are now unnecessary and will be sacrificed anyway, no need to res.
Get Maximus and go backwards to capture the second Castle in Rome. Then get the third Tome of Earth. Maximus will need all his movement next day so go to Deadwood but wait before flagging the Oasis.
There's a mistake at 6:00 in the previous video. Christian's job is to first open up two quest guards. I was a bit lazy and didn't want to fix it. Use another hero instead of Christian afterwards.
Off-screen, I moved army and artifacts a bit, there's some overlap with the previous video - my apologies. Kill the last pink hero and then send Dessa to grab the Tome of Fire. There is too much distance to grab it, but even if we did, all our heroes are depleted of movement anyway. Continued in 332.
332
-Andra digs up the grail, wee!
-Genghis runs up to the second Inferno town
-get Marion to capture the last Inferno town, eliminating pink
-we collect the Tome of Fire and 100 AAs ransom on Ash, yummy
-max out movement with Maximus before maxing out stats (for swag points).
-There's an extra 459 movement available for Maximus that I didn't need (kill the Gnolls, -100, visit Deadwood + 159, visit Fountain of Youth + 400)
-everything is set in place... Kyrre flags the Brown tent with only 1 move left
But before we finish the map.... let's add 50 points to our final score. Dismiss!
If you retreat/kill a hero with a grail, it will disappear (unless you have two+, in which case you are left with one fewer from what I've read). You can see in the Invite Hero feature that Andra still has the grail after dismissing.
Now spend an atrociously high amount of gold to hire Andra, it took around 100 hires for Andra to appear in the tavern, I've spared you the process. Build the grail here or anywhere else, doesn't matter.
At long last, rip Caesar a new one.
Congratulations! All your enemies
have been defeated! Victory is
yours!
####
Dessa uses some extra movement for this... 50, gg!
Ops, I forgot that policy. Great work as always. I've been avoiding too much ass-kissing so I stoped posting that often but is always enjoyable to watch you battle and plan your journey.
Fantastic work, congrats, I enjoyed every screen. Particularly Andra's "end turn x 1000" until antimagic expires. Because I use it a lot in tew 4, there is no other way to beat the billions of fairies inside.
You saw how intelligently I bring the tew 4 in discussion?
Salamandre said:Fantastic work, congrats, I enjoyed every screen. Particularly Andra's "end turn x 1000" until antimagic expires. Because I use it a lot in tew 4, there is no other way to beat the billions of fairies inside.
You saw how intelligently I bring the tew 4 in discussion?
I forgot to bring a Dragon Fly, but didn't feel like re-recording
There's still some non-rng-maps on my platter before I start on ERA maps. That SAFE-SoD mod is just way too nice combined with HDmod after years of fearing new months.
But what's eating most of my free time now is map creation for SoD... working on 2 concepts (or 3, I don't have a clear mind on what I should do with it atm besides story and minimap).
But I'll be sure to start with TEW4
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I reckon there is still room for improvement, maybe a week, in TEW2 but most of it would be from generating a better start. Thanks for watching!
Good that it serves you. I see a lot of people -in maps4heroes comments- raging over "week of" making the game unplayable, but not sure why there are so few to switch to era + safe sod and just get rid of annoying bugs.
____________ Era II mods and utilities
This thread is pages long: 
posted November 04, 2015 09:55 AM
