Objective:

• Defeat Normic and Caileen.

Carries Over:

• Lysander, Proetho, and the best two other heroes (max level 18)

Walkthrough:

You start out with three towns and three heroes. Each town has units garrisoned in it, plus units available to be trained, so have each hero visit the closest town and collect as many troops as possible. That should make them tough enough to handle the neutral creatures nearby.

Then have your heroes explore the areas near the towns, collecting resources as they go. There is plenty of gold available on the map, so you should always pick experience when you find treasure chests. After about a week, have your three heroes join together into one army (the portals make this easy), and put a single squire into a second army so your hero army doesn't have to waste time picking up stuff.

The heroes, along with numerous crossbowmen, squires, pikemen, and monks, should be able to finish off most everything in the triangle formed by your three towns. (The griffins to the southwest might still cause problems.) While they're doing that, continue to build up your towns, and make sure each one has a caravan. Then every so often train troops at each town and send them to the most eastern one, because that's the one closest to the road leading away from your part of the map.

Note that there are a couple quests in the area:

1. At location (81,43) you'll find Adamus' Retreat. If you return the Ankh of Life to Adamus, he'll help you out (in the form of Proetho, a level 11 priest). This is a necessary quest, and since Proetho carries over to the other scenarios, it's best to do it as quickly as possible. The ankh is being held by the venom spawn at (53,74).

2. At location (38,56) you'll find a quest hut in the water. If you kill the green flagged mermaids and harpies to the east, you'll receive a seaman's hat. The quest isn't necessary or especially useful, but you'll still need to take to the water so you can visit the blue keymaster's tent at (49,31). Also, if you're in need of money, you can find an oracle at (32,50), which will lead you to a treasure of 6000 gold. Plus, if you go to the patch of land at the eastern edge of the water, you'll find three peasant huts there. Peasants pay taxes, so they're a good investment. Just caravan them to a town and leave them there.

Once you're ready to push south, put your four heroes together and let crossbowmen, monks, and either angels or champions take up the other three slots. When you pass the monastery (which you should flag so you can get more monks) head east into a little cul-de-sac area with a gold mine and a couple archery ranges. If Proetho is a higher level than your other heroes, then you can leave him in the triangle of your towns so he can visit all the skill huts he missed before while the rest of your army explores the cul-de-sac. Then you can join them all together before you head west.

To the west you'll finally encounter the lands owned by the Red and Teal players. But first you can do another quest. At (86,79) you'll find the home of a ôstressed-out womanö and she'll offer to trade you five healing potions for 10 peasants. Since you should have a couple Life magic spellcasters with you, the healing potions aren't really necessary, and you can skip the quest.

Also, before meeting up with Teal and Red, you'll finally have to battle some griffins. But with a large army you should be able to deal with them, and it's even easier if you have angels, since they can resurrect any troops who get killed. Otherwise, just let the griffins come to you, and try to whittle down their numbers before engaging them with your melee troops and heroes.

To the west of the griffins is a Teal town. It will have loads of ranged attackers, but you can use your angels or champions to approach the castle and attract their fire while the rest of your troops clear off the turrets. It'll probably be messy, but you can use Song of Peace to great advantage here if you have it. Regardless, taking losses is ok since Teal and Red only have four towns between them, so every one you take turns the tide in your favor.

Note: If you're using angels, don't have them resurrect your heroes. Your heroes will be resurrected automatically as long as you win. Instead, have the angels resurrect themselves, if necessary.

West of the town is another one, and this is where you'll probably find Caileen. So destroy her army and capture the town, and then explore the surrounding area. At (129,93) you'll find a quest gate, which will only let you pass if you have Proetho with you. Beyond the gate you'll find another gold mine plus the purple keymaster tent.

Back near the first Teal town is the blue keymaster gate. Beyond the gate is another gold mine -- and also a few black dragons. You need to kill the dragons for the quest hut at (106,115), so go ahead and do the job. Then capture the mine and visit the quest hut so you can acquire a dwarven hammer (which is needed for another quest).

East of the gate is Red's lands, so if you've been taking serious losses during your battles, this is a good time to re-supply your troops. Between your five towns, you should be able to create quite an army now. Then head east to meet Red.

From here on you just need to treat Red like you treated Teal. The only difference is that Normic is a coward, and he's hiding behind Clodman's Wall. So go to Clodman's house at (85,105) and give him back his hammer. He'll then knock down the wall for you.

Normic is a level 24 General, and he'll have lots of troops with him, so feel free to wait a while before attacking him. With seven towns behind you you'll have all the troops you need (and then some), and once Normic is dead the scenario will end.