Inferno campaign - Agrael's decision

[Metathron]

How does one assemble a sufficient strike force to defeat the green dragons guarding Tieru?

Money was no problem on this map, as I picked gold instead of experience, but there was nowhere to recruit troops aside from the island in the southeast part of the map, but you could only get a sparse amount of cerberi, succubi and hell chargers there every week, certainly not enough to stand up to the dragons.

[Campaigner]

Mouhahaha I've defeated those ones and I only bought 3 weeks worth of troops from that island

How big is the Emerald Dragon stack btw? I need to find out if it grows over time. in my game there were 33 of those fast bastards.

I used PuppetMaster, Mass Slow, Gating and Phantom Forces. A.I will ALWAYS kill phantomforced troops first.

[Metathron]

I think mine had some 38 dragons IIRC. I collected some 4 weeks worth of creatures and used quick combat which killed only some 6 dragons.

[Gus]

quick combat is amazing... sometimes it loses much more than i do. and sometimes, i replay the fight and get raped =) well, not raped, but i get more losses. of course, this is in my experience, which is limited to first week (as my games are generally withint the first two months).

[Psychobabble]

Don't use quick combat is the idea, I think . There are a few places to collect creatures, I remember having quite a number of pit lords by the end (which I upgraded at the hill fort). Slow down the dragons. Gating the pit lords and then attack the emerald dragons with a single low level unit to take the retaliation. Then hit with all your pit lords and whatever else you've got. It wasn't too tough in the end, iirc.

[Metathron]

Obviously, I missed the pit lord dwelling or wherever it was you recruited them. And as far as I've experienced, the H5 quick combat, much as the one in H3 (but not H2) does a great job at really minimising your losses. Perhaps it's not equally skilled at manipulating your hero's spell potential?

[ThunderTitan]

And as far as I've experienced, the H5 quick combat, much as the one in H3 (but not H2) does a great job at really minimising your losses.

Since when?

[Continuity]

Since he started playing! Why do you always jump down people's throat when you don't agree with what they say? He thinks QC does a good job. Accept it!

[Gus]

And as far as I've experienced, the H5 quick combat, much as the one in H3 (but not H2) does a great job at really minimising your losses.

Since when?

have you tried it ? I had not even checked the button myself, because the previous quick combats were terrible... but since i learned there was the option to replay the combat if you don't like the outcome, what the heck, i tried it. and it REALLY does a great job at some battles. some are still crappy, of course, but it is REALLY a gain of time... it is so good, sometimes, that i actually wonder if you are not overprotected by the computer when using it, as if the programmers wanted to make up for the inherent stupidity of the AI. it is probably just an impression though, but it tells you how amazing it can be. try it and tell us what you think, i really believe there's something worth it here.

[Campaigner]

I think mine had some 38 dragons IIRC. I collected some 4 weeks worth of creatures and used quick combat which killed only some 6 dragons.

Ok, need to rush the map A.S.A.P!

[Psychobabble]

Obviously, I missed the pit lord dwelling or wherever it was you recruited them.

I believe it's stacks of pit lords scattered around the map which join you when you attack. Perhaps you didn't attack thinking they would kill you .

And as far as I've experienced, the H5 quick combat, much as the one in H3 (but not H2) does a great job at really minimising your losses. Perhaps it's not equally skilled at manipulating your hero's spell potential?

I agree with you, the quick combat is often very good - keeping losses very low much of the time, especially against stacks like mages which are difficult to attack without taking casualties. Sometimes, especially in large battles where skill is more important it does very badly, though. I personally leave quick combat on and if losses are higher than what I think they should be I restart.

[DaemianLucifer]

You need to pick up "refugees",meaning the stack of cerbery(somewhere around 100 of them),pit fiends(around 15),and succubi mistress(around 30).I bought the creatures just twice.Basically,every inferno troop you see will join you.

[Extrakun]

I think your hero's skills are quite as important too. I just happened to have all the spells from Destructive Magic, and that's probably what helps to minimise loss and etc. If you have Expert Dark Magic with Expert Destruction Magic, I'm sure it will be much easier.

[maleen]

I don't know what difficulty you are playing in, but i played on normal and only had about 15 dragons to beat. They were in four stacks and a meteor shower acoounted for seven of them. Thereafter it was easy going.

[DaemianLucifer]

I played hard and fought 24 in 3 stacks.But it was quite easy for me then.

[Ari]

As people said above, you can get pit fiends to join, and you can upgrade to pit lords at a hill fort. Their spellcasting turns the tide against some of the shooters, and in the unlikely event you can get them near an enemy, they're pretty good at melee. Towards the middle of the map, I had a few dozen cerberi, a handful of nightmares, 30-40 succubi, and 10 fiends, but it gradually got whittled away against all of the *&^ shooters (I usually don't replay battles). I was down to 10 fiends against ~12 dragons. I divided into 4 groups, and was able to use fireballs (I'm pretty sure meteor shower doesn't work, it being an earth attack) from the fiends and Agrael to get them, though depending on the group size, you may have more luck with gating and/or physical attacks.

[DaemianLucifer]

As people said above, you can get pit fiends to join, and you can upgrade to pit lords at a hill fort. Their spellcasting turns the tide against some of the shooters, and in the unlikely event you can get them near an enemy, they're pretty good at melee. Towards the middle of the map, I had a few dozen cerberi, a handful of nightmares, 30-40 succubi, and 10 fiends, but it gradually got whittled away against all of the *&^ shooters (I usually don't replay battles). I was down to 10 fiends against ~12 dragons. I divided into 4 groups, and was able to use fireballs (I'm pretty sure meteor shower doesn't work, it being an earth attack) from the fiends and Agrael to get them, though depending on the group size, you may have more luck with gating and/or physical attacks.

If you take tactics instead of going towards the ultimate,in this map your cerberi and nightmares can anihilate all of the druids and hunter before they even act,having no losses on the entire map.

And yes,meteor shower doesnt work on emeralds.Tried it once(I forgot it was earth actually).Stupid that it greyes out some spells like slow when youre fighting golems,but it doesnt grey out meteor shower in this case.

[Ari]

That only works if there are no obstacles along the middle of the map. When there are, there isn't enough movement to get to the shooters, and I resort to gating, which is only rarely faster than the stack gets a turn. The other thing that messes me up is setting up in tactical anticipating 1 stack only to find 2, or vice versa. Usually this puts my nightmares/cerberii slightly out of reach, alas.

As a quick gripe about the UI, I didn't choose tactics and decide to forgo the ultimate so much be completely oblivious to what things are required for the ultimate. The neat skill wheel is all fine well and good, but having that information incorporated int he game itself wouldn't hurt.

[DaemianLucifer]

That only works if there are no obstacles along the middle of the map. When there are, there isn't enough movement to get to the shooters, and I resort to gating, which is only rarely faster than the stack gets a turn. The other thing that messes me up is setting up in tactical anticipating 1 stack only to find 2, or vice versa. Usually this puts my nightmares/cerberii slightly out of reach, alas.

Although obstacles,or two stacks instead of one can obstruct your nightmares,cerberi,on the other hand,are lightning fast and rare are the situations they wont strike in their first turn.And since they have such a high initiative they can gate and strike before archer react.

[Orfinn]

Thanks to the Pit Lords I got and their vorpal sword, they killed the dragons one by one......