Hans C's Eternal Love campaign - completed!

[cjlee]

Awesome campaign!

I am thinking of writing a walkthrough, but unfortunately the length of this campaign, and my lack of preparation or note taking, has really made this impossible. There are way too many important battles and artifacts and crucial save points.

Am very pleased to say that I defeated Queen Marlindra, the boss supposed to be practically impossible to kill on the field. Mana cost about 1000. The losses are merely clones. After 11 tries, I found that Queen Marlindra never approaches my castle, so I had to go out and fight her.



I had the aid of the 250 extra Titans from the Gold Dragon seer. (The 2 Gold Dragons are hidden behind the nearby Rampart town.)

To beat this monster boss, one of the biggest I have ever seen:
I have orb of vulnerability and mass berserk. Use Phoenixes to lure everyone into one big heap, and Archangels to resurrect the Phoenix, because they'll get killed very fast by unberserked units.

She has magic resistance, so every turn your mass berserk won't trigger on someone. This is a big killer, because untriggered units will ignore the Phoenix and march down towards your shooters, thereby leaving the Berserk mob. After a few turns you will be stuck berserking only two stacks at most. I suspect battle would have been unwinnable if Thorgrim was the enemy.

Marlindra's forces are way too powerful to beat without Velda's archery specialty. Your melee fighters are practically babies in this battle. I hadn't thought to do Demon Farming when troops started carrying over two maps back, but probably a demon farmer would have 10000 demons by now making things easier for him.

The real winner for this battle was not my genius but AI stupidity. AI has counterstrike, fire aura, air shield, etc. They would have crushed me given enough time, since after 3 turns the troops are all over the map and berserk can work on only 2 stacks at most. But AI chose to misuse one of the most powerful game turning spells - Sacrifice. They sacrificed weaker stacks to revive their unicorns twice. This was a huge mistake.

On paper, sacrifice looks good. The AI can never pass up a chance to turn 100 level 1 units into 100 level 7s. In practice, this spell is only for human players. It's another example how sophisticated the Demoniac player has got to be. Sacrifices lowers the numbers of stacks you own or have access to via resurrection. I don't use sacrifice. It prevents me from resurrecting my units at the end of the battle, and it lowers the numbers of stacks I have on the field thereby reducing my options. Even one peasant has his use - for soaking up retaliation. AI also can never pass up the chance to kill a stack without retaliation, so I like to have weak, ineffectual stacks cluttering the battlefield and wasting AI's turns.

Having clued into this, once I have confirmed that I can blind, I encourage the computer to sacrifice, by targeting their strongest stacks. Predictably computer will sacrifice. This gives them one huge power stack - one that I can blind or berserk. So even my 103 Titans being slower than her 269 Gold Dragons, became an advantage. I walked away from the Goldies and cast Berserk on the 2000 Unicorns who helped me kill the Goldies. Then I blinded the Unicorns next turn, since Titans are faster. Marlindra was one turn away from killing me totally since I had nothing else at that stage, but the advantage of spellpower 99 blind is that from then on, I could resurrect my entire army and Marlindra was lost.



I have found this one-stack targeting strategy extremely useful. In one scenario, I had to face a vast army that included 500 Archdevils. That stack of Archdevils could kill any single stack of mine in one blow, Frenzied or not. On their own they were more powerful than all of my 7 stacks put together. But instead of blinding the Archdevils, which I could do easily, I focused on killing them which appeared harder.

This made the computer 'resurrect' their losses by sacrificing other stacks that were trapped behind castle walls.

In other words computer killed its own stacks and reduced its chances on the battlefield for me. And since I was the besieger facing tower arrows I never had to worry about blind.

When we got to 3 of my very weak stacks vs 500 Archdevils with fire aura, everything seemed doomed. But what followed next was Blind, Resurrection of Army, Clone, Prayer, and 500 Archdevils were gone. AI never had a chance once it was 7 stacks vs 1, since, they could kill only 2 stacks per turn max. To save mana, I even killed my own catapult leaving 1 tower, so that I could benefit from the free destruction of my clones after they'd resurrected every turn.

[hammerofoz]

Yes this was a good campaign. I must try it again sometime.
If you are looking for more, try any of the campaigns here by Griffin Eye. He also makes challenging campaigns.

http://heroesportal.net/maps.php?type=H3SD-C&pagenum=3

[cjlee]

Really feel exhausted playing this campaign. It is far more intense than the standard campaigns.

Now on the verge of finishing it, I am really exhausted. Now I remember why I never finished it the first time round many years ago. It was just too much for me.

Hans C's effort is far superior to any standard map. I would even describe it as a must-have basic trainer for all Heroes gamers. In this campaign, you learn the use of nearly every spell, ranging from protection from X to View Air, you learn how every unit or action or speciality (eg Eagle Eye) has its place, and you learn how to use terrain, artifacts, timing, game mechanics, etc.

But that's not the same as saying it is 'consistently challenging'. It is indeed challenging, but it is not perfect. There are too many repetitive battles and scenarios and I am really tired of them. I hope future mapmakers will learn from this campaign's imperfections. I rated it a 10, but it could have been better still.

I'm at this stage in map 7 where I am about to fight Malekith, and I am tired. There are still a bunch of artifact Seers I haven't revisited for my reward. There are a lot of creatures I haven't hired, and since creatures will carry over, I must hire them or face a much harder next mission. I am just sick of fighting the same gigantic oversized enemy armies, Legions of Whatever, and resurrecting like crazy after the final stack is blinded or hypnotized. Late into the campaign, I think Hans C got tired of thinking up new challenges, because every single Inferno and Dungeon hero, despite the Hype that they were super powerful, was really a cookie cutter stock villain that would have been a pushover had his forces outnumbered mine by only 2:1. I hardly even remembered their names and specialties - not that even their Armageddons or Chain Lightnings really hurt me.

It's very sad. If this map had been size L it would probably have been much more fun to play.

[Salamandre]

Umm, you know Hans designed his maps and campaigns in 2002 or so. Thats the really beginnings of Heroes 3 and yet his Lone Knight remains one of the top maps. I played the campaign but didn't like much, precisely because it was designed so early, so Hans tries to put in use every aspect of Heroes, even those who we realized later, are totally worthless.

[cjlee]

I think the important thing is that he designed it so early. It's a Must Play for anyone starting Heroes 3. It's truly a great intro for this game.

But I see that (as with his other maps) Hans C tends to use too much of everything when he can. This is a bad habit that unfortunately many, many other mapmakers also have. (Witness the XL or L maps with too much empty space; HansC's smaller maps were well designed).

Let me suggest that if you are setting up the scene for a 2 towns vs 6 towns conflict, why not make it 1 town vs 3 towns instead on a smaller map? I also believe that in our modern wired world, mapmakers should not hesitate to ask the public for suggestions for tricks to use. In the map that I have currently put aside because it's too repetitive (Mission 7 of his 8 mission campaign), HansC wanted to create challenges by matching us with Dungeon heroes each with a different speciality. But when armies are big, spell power doesn't act so effectively. Why set us up for an ice bolt or meteor shower specialist if that can inflict 3k damage tops, while any stack of my units can do 40k? So the way to create extra challenge could have been to have heroes with the right speciality introduced in the way that emphasizes their speciality.

EG in this map, Gunnar the logistician was stuck in a small area. He could have been released via a one way portal into my lands instead, marching around creating chaos, while I tried to chase him down and could not because he was armed with boots and gloves and a slew of 16+ speed dragons.

Likewise we could have been introduced to a battle vs Sir Mullich armed with Cape, Ring and Necklace of Swiftness, Expert Prayer and Expert Haste.

Battles like these would be surprisingly hard, without requiring Legions of Whatever. Come on, when fighting AI, Legions of Whatever WILL eventually be defeated and become tons of experience and level ups for a human player. It's the nonstop resurrecting 'clone archangel, resurrect, destroy clone, make new clone' that drives me nuts.

That said, Salamandre I currently have a problem from this map that I cant solve. It was not crucial to the mission and I was thinking of bypassing it. 4000 Titans are guarding a Temple of Enlightenment. I'm in month 2, so I have 100+ Titans and similar other troops eg 100+ Behemoths, 200+ Phoenixes. Orb of Vulnerability is not available, so no casting mind spells on the Titans. I can't beat the Titans without incredible losses, and I can't restrain the Titans so that I can resurrect in peace. (I have over 3200 mana, hero with average stats of 90). I am not going to wait a few months to get more troops, so am wondering how to beat the 4000 Titan army.

[Maciek]

How about Quicksand (if you have it)? If you can, Teleport away when Titans get close.
If you also have Air Shield and Summon Earth Elemental or some other big stacks, you should survive until Titans are out of shots.

Other suggestion: try diplomizing the Titans. Use the following army: n+1 Titans, n other strong creatures and your best Diplomat (hero with Expert Diplomacy, highest attack and defense). If that doesn't work, try with all your army. If that also doesn't work, they likely won't join you no matter what.

[cjlee]

Thanks Maciek, I could try that later!

This is the awesome thing about HansC; his work really puts every spell to the test. He set up the game such that only just before I met the Titans, I'd killed 4000 Medusa Queens for the Summon Earth Elemental Spell!

Despite years of Heroes 3 gaming, I've never tried Summon Earth Elemental before because they are too slow and I've never had the need. (Summoning one or two stacks to boost a one-phoenix army doesn't count; when facing 4000 Titans I need real massive use of this spell in a way that puts Earth, as opposed to weaker elementals, to the test.)

[cjlee]

Just had a face palm moment. I just went in after a week with a full army and crushed 4 legions of Titans in a straightforward shootout. No special tactics needed except air shield, clone and resurrection.

I simply hadn't bothered to hire enough troops, plus I was marching with a quick army (Titans, Azure Dragons, Archangels and Phoenix along with 3 stacks of 1 Master Genie). Plus, I need to take back all the stuff I said earlier about legions of whatever forcing me to take lots of time to resurrect. It's really because I don't have enough troops (desperately trying to get a good score). Most of my big battles might have gone much more quickly in terms of resurrection, had I brought along my mighty gorgons and my behemoths which were trundling along with the sharpshooters and enchanters under my squire hero Dracon. He had most of my troops, and seems to attract less attacks than Velda who had fewer troops.

This brings me back to my comments on Fortress faction in the past. I am not a fan of Fortress although I can play it competently. Yet inevitably when faced with the choice to play with mixed troops, I find myself leaving them behind. It is really not about how good the Fortress troops are individually. It is about that extra boost you get when you dump Mighty Gorgons and Hydras and move only with speed 11 or higher troops. And since in late game dragonflies are no longer that powerful even in quantity, that means I rarely have Fortress troops in my army during the important battles.

In any map that calls for siege defence, I would certainly value Fortress greatly. But in a map where you must move quickly - and that's most maps - I think the advantages of Mighty Gorgon and Hydras are really outweighed by their speed disadvantage. They are still worth building the structures for, just in case you have a battle where their unique abilities come in handy.

[cjlee]

superceded

[cjlee]

superceded

[cjlee]

just beat Mutarre, month 3 week 1 with what I consider is a good margin of safety - 3160 mana remaining. Basically berserked her dragons into submission, and killed the dragons who could not be berserked. Quite a bit of brute force since I had to get the Level 7 stacks from 5 alignments. In one try, I even had to hide the Archdevils in a corner and cast force field, berserking the dragons every other turn. My stats were all 99 by then with artifacts.

But I was never satisfied with this battle. I consider Heroes an intellectual game where every battle should be a puzzle to be a good battle, and every puzzle should be solved without relying too heavily on luck. I played this 6 times and won only twice.

2 defeats were due to misarrangement of troops. I had to lure Mutarre to move 3 dragon stacks close enough to cast mass berserk, so that I only had to fight her crystal and black dragons at the same time. It is impossible to survive if you fight 3 stacks at one time. One of my two victories was won without 3 stacks close together, so I had to move one tempting stack (Titans) into the middle of the dragon stacks to lure the enemy to attack them and get all berserked together. This is intellectually acceptable to me.

2 defeats were due to too many freezes of creatures. When facing Azure Dragons there is the problem of Fear. Strangely, I have played some battles where in over 30 moves (1 stack's turn is a move), there was only 1 Fear moment. But in some battles, your troops can freeze 5 times in a row even when morale is positive. And in my attempts, I had some heartrending moments where Phoenix and Archdevils froze (Archangels dead by then). Although by that point the enemy dragons were sufficiently reduced.

Solving the Freeze issue is a big problem for me. Winning just because my troops didn't freeze, simply doesn't sound right. (At this point the badge of courage had been long since surrendered as per game requirement.)

Oh well, I'm almost done with this campaign. Excellent work and awesome intro to HOMM 3!
(Yes, I'm aware that H7 is being released today, but I am deliberately praising H3 to show how awesome an 18 year old game still can be. H3 is how you make a computer game that is endlessly replayable even by experienced players such as me. H6 is how you make a computer game that ends up in the $1 discount pile within a year.)

[Maciek]

You never mentioned any Demons. If you have hundreds of level 7 creatures, including Devils, you could probably have thousands of Demons. Maybe even over 10 thousand. Such a stack could take some beating and hit hard even with retals only. Also, undeads (if you have any) are immune to Fear.

[cjlee]

Nah Maciek, in this scenario it's not that easy to raise tons of demons since you are the good girl and fighting with 'good' troops. Not to mention she has archery expertise. Not worth bringing along unnecessary (Pit Lord + Demon) stacks to battle.

I'm not a demon raiser, mainly because I like it fast and am trying hard to get a good score.

but what really drives me nuts is that some players can play much faster than me despite all my efforts. There was this guy who won the last map in 2 days, so I worked it out and did the same. If he hadn't said it could be done, I would not have done it too! Wound up 395 days, score of 2190 Archangel which is still significantly lower than the best players. (Someone had 2450, WTF.)

That said, army sizes now are in the legions so it was really amusing to wield Armadeggon's blade, and find that it had practically no effect on the enemy stack sizes. It felt like some overhyped Hollywood movie. I'm supposed to be able to cast Armageddon at 11000+ damage, but everyone seems to have expert resistance with resistance artifacts despite me not getting the artifacts when I beat them, so over 60% damage is negated.

One question: did anyone ever play a super defensive game, and beat Queen Malindra + General Gybe?