To Rule the World → Rusted Desert

[Angelspit]

The second scenario, the Rusted
Desert, will prove a logistical nightmare. It is basically a vast empty area,
full of resources, mines, artifacts etc., mostly unguarded. Well, when I say
unguarded, I mean "unguarded by permanent guards". You will get your share of
neutral armies, sure enough - scattered across the desert are perhaps fifty,
perhaps even more patrolling neutral armies with 80+ Nomads each. You will
not be able to beat them right away - cleaning the area will require some
major hit-and-run attacks, accompanied with serious drinking of Potions of
Immortality. Don't even hope to fight the Nomads without first attaining GM
Combat and either at least expert melee and/or some significant Medusa stacks of your own.
The good news is that patrolling guards mean that almost
all mines can be captured by a single level 1 hero, if he is lucky enough not
to get attacked. You should try to reach the gold mine in the north-western
corner as quickly as possible. Which reminds me, take care to actually EQUIP
the artifacts you got in the last map...


Your main task, apart from avoiding the nomads, will be
to crush the necromancers and befriend the Megadragon. The necromancers have
three cities, located in the center, in the north-center and in the
center-east. They do have some formidable armies and strong heroes (two
level 17 and one level 23), but you can pretty much forget about them, as
they will be so scared of the Nomads that they will just back to their towns
and stay there. Fortunately they don't have any shooters, so your direct
damage spells will take care of them quite well. I would still recommend
stacking up on Potions of Immortality and some fodder troops; 6x1 Nightmares
(good for scaring the enemy heroes) stacked around Spazz turned out to be
quite effective.
The strongest of the necromancer heroes has a Dragon
Scale Shield and Armor, which you will need to get the Megadragon's favour -
perhaps it is a cannibal. It will also need 100 Sulfur. Once you get all
this, and clear the two arenas (one in the north near the Gold mine, the
other in the south, east of your southernmost town), go to the Megadragon
area in the south-west. Don't forget to relieve one loose Megadragon of his
hoard of Armor of Death, Snowshoes and Supreme Crown of the Magi, you will
need them in the last scenario.
Spazz is limited to level 22. I focused on improving his
Chaos skills, almost maxing him out (only master in Sorcery). The remaining
levels went into the Combat skill.

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[Wheeler Dealer]

Playing on Champion. I decided I wanted to remain a Witch King. Good fun but bad decision for efficient completion of this scenario. The Fear Attack doesn't do much good if you die on the first counterattack. Can't do a lot of Melee fighting. Spazz finished this scenario at level 22 with 20 Chaos, 5 Nobility and 3 Combat skills. I never hired creatures to fight. I had:
L13 General, not very helpful, Those tactics skills only apply to creatures.
L13 Sorcerer, Master Chaos Magic
L12 Necromancer, Master Death Magic (Death Call was very useful at the end)
L11 Druid Master, Master Nature Magic (That Parchment of Water Elemental sure made things easier)

One important tactic, put one creature in every mine you take, that lets you see the surrounding area to help track those wandering armies. Early on use the poor man's town portal liberally to get around faster (attack a neutral stack and retreat). For the first month, progress was very slow, Spazz and two other heroes scrounging for mines. Spazz could win the occasional battle if the opponent was very slow or fairly small (he got Implosion right at the end of the last scenario). Then I got a Scroll of Quicksand from the Temple! If I could control the nomads with Quicksand, Spazz could pound them into oblivion! What if I could get a Druid that also had Quicksand?! No luck, neither Witch Guild had Quicksand or Wasp Swarm. Oh wait, I have a Journeyman's Notebook somewhere!

The basic plan was the Death Knight held the Scroll of Quicksand, he and the Druid held the nomads back and Spazz pounded them! The Sorcerer used confusion and misfortune as needed and the Necromancer used Fatigue and Poison. Never failed to win a nomad battle or take any casualties. The levels just piled up. Never figured a good way to deal with the Genies and Air Elementals without using hit and run. Spazz could only win the Coliseum of Might with the Dragon Armor and several Potions of Immortality.

When it came time to take out the last Necromancer {the first two had ventured out with a small force) his army was too big for any army I could muster. The 105 vampires, 36 bone dragons, 300 ghosts and 700 skeletons were just too tough! It took about 6 hit and run attacks with my 5 heroes to get that job done.

It was fun doing it this way!!!

[Wheeler Dealer]

The Rusted Desert, Champion, Max 22.

Here I am again, 2 years later. I've attached part of my journal. I'll try not to be redundant. One thing I did different this time was to make use of a thief to sneak around and several order lords to generate gold and resources. The two battle academies gave all these minor heroes L3.

Had to use different tactics this time since I didn't have any way to cast quicksand. Lots of Confusion, Wasp Swarm, Fatigue, and summoning decoys to delay the enemy. Casting Snake/First Strike on my Bone Dragons let them hit the nomads w/o retaliation.

Week 1, Hired Erica Fade.

Week 2, Hired a druid and a sorcerer. Captured 2 gold mines. Spazz fought his first battle for the mine in the SW corner against 93 ghosts and 370 skeletons.

Week 3, Spazz's Fire Ring does 310 and his Fireball does 260? Why is that. For some reason the Mayhem Staff doesn't boost Fireball. Spazz cleared a pyramid. Hired a death knight and a necromancer.

Week 4, Snuck up and stole the necropolis in the NE. Won my first battle against neutral nomads.

Week 5, Took 2 necropolis, lost one. Routinely beating the neutral nomads.

Week 7, Added 4 Black Dragons.

Week 8, Couple of H&Rs against Red's large armies. Replaced my Black Dragons with 10 Bone Dragons and 15 Vampires. Morale is an issue. The nomads are more difficult (sucks up lots of mana) because I have no Quicksand this time around.

Week 9, defeated a Genie/Air Elemental army, but 3 heroes died. Flipped two of the necropolises. Spazz hit L19 so I decided to take out the Megadragons and then hit the 3 level boosters. There were six Megadragons. I went in with my five heroes, all with PoIs in reserve. My druid and necromancer are dead, so I'll have to haul them all the way across the map to revive them.

Week 10, Hit two Coliseums of Might, Spazz needed a couple of PoI for each. The other heroes had no chance.

Week 11, Spazz maxed out at the ToK, gaining GM Chaos. From this point it's H&R on Red until I can get the Dragon Scale Armor. Took the middle necropolis. Apparently, I need to beat Panur.

Week 12, Defeated Panur and eliminated Red. No H&R required. I could take another week to travel to the NE asylum to learn Disintegrate. Unlike normal, I'm going to pass on that obsessive, compulsive detail.

My supporting heroes were L14, L14, L12 and L12. I had 20 Bone Dragons and 30 Vampires. Seven L3 Order Lords were scattered about the map along with a L3 thief. When I traded my accumulated wood and gold for Sulphur, I had 177.

Won @3,4,3.