The Last Bastion

[Wheeler Dealer]

The Last Man Standing, Playing on Champion

From informed_user on Gamefaqs.

1 altar of chaos magic, 1 altar of death magic, 1 altar of order magic 1 altar of tactics, 1 altar of scouting, 1 altar of nobility, 3 combat school, 3 magic school, 2 arena, 2 level up tree.

The final campaign is a single large map. You pick one of the heroes you used in the previous campaigns and fight against all the other campaign heroes. You must also capture the city of Rylos in the center of the map.

Each hero starts with 3 towns and 2, useless, level 10 generic heroes. I recommend hiring a level 1 tactics hero and using them with your main hero. Also get lords for each town and a thief. Have the thief grab resources and artifacts.

This map has a lot of mobile neutral armies that will attack you if you are close by. Early on you should use heroes only and stick to the outer edge of the map to avoid the neutrals.

Your main hero is probably strong enough for you to start attacking one of the rival factions right away. Work on getting rid of each rival one by one while building up your towns. Once you have beaten the other 4 heroes you can begin attacking the 5 life towns in the center. Rylos is defended by a level 35 hero with a large army. With your 3 towns fully built you can easily outgrow Rylos' defense force in a few months.

With the other heroes captured and Rylos under your control, you have finished Winds of War.

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The nations, from the north, clockwise are: Might, Order, Death, Chaos and Nature. I built out all the towns but never used creatures except from my home base towns. I had 16 Order Lords, a GM Thief and a knight for Tactics. There are 25 towns, 4 Dream Teachers, 3 Veteran Guilds and 3 Battle Academies in the asylums.

The Altars are random. My income at the end was about 40,000 gp per day.

From my journal:

Estimated completion @ 4,2,1 so stop buying peasants @ 3,4,1. Oops, this time I finished at 3,1,5.

I went with Mysterio, I just like Order Magic. Bad news, one of my L10 heroes is a Warlord.

There are 3 random selections near my start that change on each restart. I wanted a useful altar and two artifacts that were helpful.

Week 1, I got 2 ESs in my central town. Fire out single one level creatures to scoop up the loose resources. Let the heroes flag mines. Gold is more important than xp early on.

Mysterio liberated and claimed a gold mine and a Sulphur mine on the East edge of the map. Took the Purple Haven on the East edge.

Captured the NE necropolis. Defeated and imprisoned BVT. Took the central necropolis. Hired Erica Fade. Captured the Last necropolis, then took another haven. I controlled 8 towns at the end of week 1. Half my towns need forts. Order Lords aren't helping much, yet.

Week 2, received 2 ESs. Captured all three Orange Asylums, eliminating Orange. Purple took my S-Central Asylum. Recaptured my asylum.

Week 3, MtM defeated 28 Titans to reach an Altar of Combat. Took a preserve, imprisoning Ertan Revol. Very difficult battle. MtM took a second preserve and the NE haven using my second army.

Week 4, own all outer rim towns. All the other featured heroes are eliminated.

Week 5, Purple rolled out a huge army when a group of my Order Lords got close to the SW garrison.

Week 6, MtM (with 10 ESs) defeated the NE garrison defending Rylos. Then Eastwatch and the SE garrison. Defeated the other two garrisons and captured Northwatch. There are two other Purple Armies I can't beat with just MtM and 10 ESs.

Week 7, Purple rolled out and took back 2 of the inner havens. Erica Fade is GM in 3 Scouting Skills (L11).

Week 8, MtM reached L30. Time to hit the 4 Level-up locations. Out of 9 chances, 1 allowed MtM to learn Hypnotize!

Week 9, Last peasant purchase @ 3,1,1. Purple pulled their largest army back into Rylos.

On 3,1,5 I attacked the Champion of Rylos. I had MtM (L34), a L14 Battle Mage, a L8 Crusader, 36 Titans, 16 ESs, 157 Genies and 704 halflings. The CoR was a L35 Paladin with 20 Champions, 10 Catapults, 40 Monks, 80 Crusaders, 160 Ballistae and 380 Crossbowmen. The CoR had some special artifacts: Bow of the Elf King (extra shot for your ranged units), Robe of the Guardian (first three damage taken is negated), a Crystal of Memory (which didn't prevent me from casting Forgetfulness on the Monks, maybe my Crown of Enchantment carried the day) and the Ring of Light. One key was speed, My Crusader had a Ring of Speed and Advanced Tactics. The other key was Hypnotism. I lost an ES, a Titan and 3 Genies.

The fight for Rylos was easier even though it was well defended inside a castle. Flawless Victory.