Stuck on Necromancer - Thoughts and intentions

[Simira]

Help!
I started the scenario, played for a long time, got stuck, read the walkthough, restarted, and is stuck again!

I manage to capture the Haven town a bit west several times, but every time there is one too strong hero (Johari) coming after me. No choice but to head back to HQ to strengthen up, but he always seems to be the tad bit stronger than me. And this time around I am even playing on Easy!

Any advice on how to get through this one without cheating?

[cjlee]

I played on the hardest difficulty, and in my own walkthrough https://www.celestialheavens.com/forum/22/16039

I thought it was nearly as difficult as the average Heroes 2 campaign map. I didn't play this campaign on the final patch 2.21 so it is possible they made some changes.

Firstly, make a beeline for the Western castle and take it before Week 2. You should hire a second hero and give everything to Adar Malik.

Secondly, stay around and defend. You will be attacked. But since you are behind walls, you have a modest advantage. This is by far the hardest part of the mission. The rest should not be so hard. I loaded and saved several times to see what would happen. There are tempting buildings near your castle, but Johari really can pounce very quickly, so for the first 2 weeks you are stuck defending this western castle.

In his walkthrough Kalah said it took him a while to get anywhere due to lack of resources. I found it the same. There are mines nearby but you really cannot afford to visit them because Johari hangs around within 1-2 days march from you. Pretty much any location that you cannot visit within 1 day, you must not visit until Johari is dead.

Most heroes games you don't need to turtle. This map you have to turtle, building up your castle until you accumulate enough troops to beat the invaders. I had to build up the Western castle and neglect my original necropolis because I needed to hire on the spot.

[Avonu]

I played on the hardest difficulty, and in my own walkthrough https://www.celestialheavens.com/forum/22/16039

I thought it was nearly as difficult as the average Heroes 2 campaign map. I didn't play this campaign on the final patch 2.21 so it is possible they made some changes.

Firstly, make a beeline for the Western castle and take it before Week 2. You should hire a second hero and give everything to Adar Malik.

It won't work.
I also have the same problem in this mission. Something was broken, as you really don't have a chance against this max level enemy - Johari will arrive ASAP when you destroy Simurgh and decimate your army in first turn with her spells alone, not to mention her army.
I have the same problem (enemy 30th level wandering adventure map and attacking you at first sight) in 1st Dungeon map. But there enemy hero after few turns stopped to move and just stay in Sylvan castle (so you shouldn't take it).

I tried to capture enemy fort and castle ASAP in 4th Necropolis map (as mentioned in CH's walkthrough) but after a few days Johari arrive and just destroy you. There is probably a way to outmanoeuvre her but I'm not in mood to replay this mission again and again because some script was broken. Which is shame, because whole campaign to this miassion was nice and bug-free.

[Antalyan]

Well, people complained about low difficulty and weak AI. And when it's very powerful in this mission, the're complaining again

I do remember this mission and agree it's one of the toughest in the whole game. If you did not level-up Adar Malik in the second mission, you could experience serious troubles. As far as I remember, you need to have as many spell-resistant creatures as possible. Also the fortifications in the town can be used to boost your army.

[Avonu]

It's not about "powerful" AI, it's about end-game enemy hero attacking you at her first sight (IIRC she's 30th lvl, you are ca. 15th). Other enemy heroes are no problem, just this one is as she kills your whole army with one chain lightning spell, no matter how large army you have or how advanced your fortifications are.
Johari "activates" as soon as you fight Simurgh, which you have to or you can't make progress on map, and there is no way to evade her.

[cjlee]

Oh damn, the broken script must have happened after the 1.8 patch. I played the Necro campaign at or before 1.8.

Can't remember what level I got Adar Malik to previously, but he was definitely a strong hero by the time of this map. Also I never got hit by chain lightning.

[Simira]

Well, people complained about low difficulty and weak AI. And when it's very powerful in this mission, the're complaining again

I do remember this mission and agree it's one of the toughest in the whole game. If you did not level-up Adar Malik in the second mission, you could experience serious troubles. As far as I remember, you need to have as many spell-resistant creatures as possible. Also the fortifications in the town can be used to boost your army.

I never complained about low difficulty. And I don't complain about the difficulty here either, I am asking for help and advice on how to solve the challenge that this scenario is.

So, I have to go back and replay the previous scenario to boost Adar Malik to the maximum then? And hope it works?

[Avonu]

I think there is a way to trick Johari (and thus to disable her scipt), but I not in mood to find it any soon. I prefer to play random maps, as fun from there is much better - no level cap (at least 999th is hard to achive ) and you have random skills, instead of fixed (you can set this in campaign too, but level cap will stay).

I suggest you to save game after Simurgh fight and see, where you can go before she arrive and what actions won't "aggro" her.

[Antalyan]

Well, people complained about low difficulty and weak AI. And when it's very powerful in this mission, the're complaining again

I do remember this mission and agree it's one of the toughest in the whole game. If you did not level-up Adar Malik in the second mission, you could experience serious troubles. As far as I remember, you need to have as many spell-resistant creatures as possible. Also the fortifications in the town can be used to boost your army.

I never complained about low difficulty. And I don't complain about the difficulty here either, I am asking for help and advice on how to solve the challenge that this scenario is.

So, I have to go back and replay the previous scenario to boost Adar Malik to the maximum then? And hope it works?

Well, the post was not adressed exactly to you, just generally to the numerous complaints I have read on different forums so far

To your problem: Increasing Adar-Malik's level may help you but I would not replay it if I were you, just because it's too much time spent on it and thanks to the level cap Avonu mentions, you will probably level-up Adar Malik quite fast anyway.

It's been some time since I played the mission (I will replay it next year but let it aside for now), so I'm sorry if some info is not accurate, but if Johari attacks you as soon as you kill the Simurgh, why not to wait with killing it? Is it killed by Johari herself then?

I also remember heroes moving southwards to the oasis without any reason. If you conquer the fortress there, maybe the enemy heroes move there too and you will have a free path forward (after town teleport).

[Simira]

I am not attacked right after defeating the simurgh, but shortly after I take either the haven town or the fort (or anything, really). I don't have time to build up a defense or enough troops to defeat him.
On the other hand, the game considered the campaign completed, for some fun reason, so I just played through the one story missing and then the end one. I probably wont ever bother to finish the academy campaign, at least not until I have forgotten about the problems and replay the whole game.

[Antalyan]

I am not attacked right after defeating the simurgh, but shortly after I take either the haven town or the fort (or anything, really). I don't have time to build up a defense or enough troops to defeat him.
On the other hand, the game considered the campaign completed, for some fun reason, so I just played through the one story missing and then the end one. I probably wont ever bother to finish the academy campaign, at least not until I have forgotten about the problems and replay the whole game.

Do whatever you like Although I remember I had no problems with academy campaign at all, it's my favourite one, so I would recommend you to play it.

[Avonu]

OK, I played this map a little. basically you need attack yellow player ASAP and capture his town (forget about southern fort for a while). Next you will be attacked by orange (from West) and blue (from Northen-East) players. Until you destroy their main armies, you probably will need to use hit&run tactics, a lot of town portal and even allow them to capture yellow player town a few times. It is long and boring mission with lvl 30th Johari waiting to attack your main hero as soon as you will trigger her script.
As far as I could observe, there is one point, after crossing which she will be activated:



However, it is possible that this is her another point:



I didn't test this fully yet, so it may not be fully true.

You need a lot of cannon folder to fight Johari. She is not that hard, but she can decimate your army with easy, if you don't have lots and lots of troops. The good thing is that, she hunt your main hero, so with creative use of town portal and secondary heroes, you can outmanouver her for a while.

The main problem with this sceanrio is IIRC that it was created, when magic was weaker, so having fight lvl 20th heroes wasn't such a problem. However, after changes, these heroes can kill your entire weakly growth with one spell (Mirym and his Tsunami for example). And they are hard to kill with Fire Magic, because of their Gargoyles.

[Zarathustra]

Hi, I just finished this map scenario and would like to share how I managed to Clear it out.
I managed to lure Johari to the oasis, then I teleported to town ad then ran straight for the mission objective, which is to capture a town.

No fight With Johari.

[cjleeagain]

Hi, I just finished this map scenario and would like to share how I managed to Clear it out.
I managed to lure Johari to the oasis, then I teleported to town ad then ran straight for the mission objective, which is to capture a town.

No fight With Johari.

Played like a true Heroes top ranked player.

I did mention in my own walkthroughs that the mission objective is very easy to attain.

But to play the way you did, takes a mindset that remembers how Heroes maps played in earlier iterations of this game. There are Heroes 1-3 maps where the map can be very easily completed if you focus on the objective, and very hard to complete if you stuck to a rigid 'build up castle and kill em all' strategy.

Thanks to how easy H7 is, most of us including me have gotten used to winning with inferior strategies and bad judgement.

[danhvo]

Hi, I just finished this map scenario and would like to share how I managed to Clear it out.
I managed to lure Johari to the oasis, then I teleported to town ad then ran straight for the mission objective, which is to capture a town.

No fight With Johari.

Smart. But I like beating the crap out of Johari. It took a few weeks to build up my army, but once I had enough that the threat rating was Average, I went for it. I finished the map on Day 2 of Week 9.