The Ranger - The Vampire Lord

[maltz]

If you would like to take a look at the original page visit this link:
https://www.celestialheavens.com/586

[maltz]

A big thank to Psychobabble who allowed me to steal his copyright, and helped me to proofread every single paragraph of the above missions. :-)

[LordErtz]

Thanks for the tips. I beat it in just over 3 months.



BTW, Nicolai has the pendant of master

[metalic]

Few things I need to clarify are:



1. Holy Grail is always around the sulfur mine near your Sylvan Towns.



2. Sandro's Cloak can be bought in artifact merchant.

[asandir]

yeah, i beat nicolai early and then completed the requied items, so when i met him later he was not nearly so dangerous as some people have found him to be, it cost me some of my early troops, but was worth it in the end

[maltz]

> 2. Sandro's Cloak can be bought in artifact merchant.

You may be able to find it on the map (for example, guarded by the first group of spectral dragons, as in one of my two runs). I've seen the artifact merchant carry it, but that was another mission :-p. It seems that the merchants refresh their items from time to time, though.
Edited on Mon, Jul 31 2006, 21:37 by maltz

[Psychobabble]

A big round of applause for Maltz, it's a great job he's done on these walkthroughs!



And artifact merchants definately refresh, I think it's every two weeks or maybe when you buy some of their stock and a new week comes up.

[metalic]

I still suspect that Sandro's Cloak is garanteed to appear in A.M. it will not refresh away as time goes, and A.I. is most likely to find it.



I read another tutorial written by Darkrain.cn, he mentioned that Sandro's Cloak can be found in the hand of the first necro hero of the first necro town.. -_- ... I didn't find it tho.



It would be even better if you could kindly post the puzzel map, so we can build the grail at the start... j/k



P.S. Great tutorial, appreciated.

[maltz]

Sorry I deleted my saves already, but here is some info that may be useful (about Sandro's cloak).



There are always 2 relic-class artifacts guarded by the first group of Spectral Dragons (S1 on the map). I once restarted the game about 30 times just to see what is being offered (with the OpenCircleFog cheat). Actually I've seen all kinds of relic artifacts there. Sandro's cloak is one of them, appearing about 1/5 of the time. There are other relic artifact locations on the map. So even if the cloak does not appear at S1, it might spawn elsewhere. If the cloak spawns close to an AI town, or the 2nd merchant close to town F, then the AI hero will probably get/buy it before you.



However, I don't really feel the need to go for Dark as the AIs aren't that threatening, if you make it out fast enough.

[GatorG]

I've played this map on 1.2 and I would suggest rushing the middle necro town as soon as possible (when possible). Once I knocked that town out, I wasn't bothered underground. In addition, I was able to avoid Vlad while I cleared the spectral dragons (I had instant travel too, which helped getting to one of the spectral dragons in less time). Note - the Necros didn't go underground. G (-:



edit - Sandro's cloak didn't show up in my game.
Edited on Mon, Aug 07 2006, 05:24 by GatorG

[maltz]

If you can win the mission without Sandro's cloak, you are already too good to use this artifact! Don't feel sorry about that one precious skill slot for dark magic. In the next campaign you might use Findan to crush the sometimes formidable Izzy (like 200 angels), who you've developed into a super woman.
Edited on Tue, Aug 08 2006, 15:23 by maltz

[Sir_Toejam]

from the walkthrough:

They both carry the Ranger's ultimate skill, which is very handy in this mission.

actually, this must have changed with the latest patch; only Talanar has the nature's luck ability. Both do have a free skill slot though. i gave talanar light magic, which worked out quite well.



dirael is built entirely as a pure spellcaster. i recommend adding dark magic, curse of mind/pain, and that cursed ground ability (does decent damage to walkers for no spell points). Give her sandros cloak once you find it. Moreover, I gave all the unicorns to her (I prefer the treants to be in findan's army, as they can hold back attackers from the primary offense generated by ranged units). I suddenly realized after i took over the first necro town that... she would do better with liches than unicorns. Bye-bye horsie! I roasted all the unis for dinner (mmmm, tasty!) and turned the bones into liches. she is now sporting the entirely undead army, and doing quite well on her own. I expect with both elf towns turning out unis ever week, and the necro towns i take over turning out liches, she will have a very nice little army in a month or two.



BTW, if you want to spare your hunters, bring along a decent sized stack of sprites. During Castle sieges, the AI always seems to target them first and foremost, especially those irritating arrow towers. Other than that, sprites are pretty much dead weight in a siege of an undead castle. I'd guess the reason the AI targets them is because of the no-retaliation ability, and they fly. so just set them to defend, put them in front of a stack of hunters, and resurrect them just before you win the siege battle. So far, the AI hasn't touched my hunters as long as the sprites were standing.



Question:



Is it worth it to portal back to the original elf town to change your favored enemy once you hit the underground area? Seems it would be worth spending the extra few days getting back to set a favorite to spectral drags?

[maltz]

Thanks for your info. In my 2 runs on this mission (both patch 1.1 heroic) I saw Nature's luck on Dirael. I will verify this later in my game (probably not very soon, though).



And yes, giving Findan some updated favorite enemy list is a very good idea. If you are playing on heroic there is a stack of ~100 Spectral dragons that you have to kill.

[Sir_Toejam]

~100 Spectral dragons that you have to kill.

doh! I just found out there is on hard difficulty too. let's see, where is that previous save...

[Gorgarr]

Hi there, people...I have something to ask about this scenario, and I cannot find any better place to do it :-) here is what happened to me...I love to play unspoiled, so i tried the scenario before reading this guide. I was roaming the underground in search of the dwarven artifacts, when suddendly...here is Nicolai!! I didn't try to escape from him, because my Findan was bulked up enough to defeat him...I succeeded, even if it costed me a lot...and I had the video where Nicolai comes back to life. For now, that's regular...but you can imagine my surprise when I saw Nicolai coming out...from the town in C...that was mine!!! I conquered it a lot of time before...OK, the town was unguarded, but I think Nicolai shuoldn't be able to do this!!



What about it? I searched across a lot of guides, but no one talks about something like this. I think that's a bad bug to encounter, because Nicolai gets a new town, you lose one...and more on, the town he gets is dangerously near to your home land! This could leave you completely hopeless...

[maltz]

> I was roaming the underground in search of the dwarven artifacts, when suddendly...here is Nicolai!!

> Nicolai coming out...from the town in C



Wow I never knew the Town FGH AI heroes could travel underground. Thanks for the news. May I ask when (Day & Week) did you spot him? Could it be that Nicolai casted Town Portal in some funny places that boots him directly underground?



Yes, Nicolai is designed to do this kind of naughty thing. If you look at the bright side, you can take other towns which Nicolai is not defending, and that usually means better-built Necro towns.
Edited on Fri, Aug 11 2006, 12:46 by maltz

[Gorgarr]

Are you sure Nicolai could spawn from one of your cities???? This sounds incredibly weird to me...so weird that I thought directly it'sa a bug, and felt comfortable with cheating to come to the end of this infernal scenario...



I'm not sure of the time in which that happened... but it was not early in the game. Yep, maybe a Town Portal took him there in an absolutely casual manner...He casted it in a certain point on the surface...the underground city was free of heroes...and here it is! I think anyway he wasn't supposed to do so...or else, it should be really difficult to protect yourself from his raids...and I'm playing with easy difficulty!



That's it...in this scenario, because of one of these things, something got wrong...oh, please, let me believe it...or I won't calm down my internal super-ego for having to cheat...:-P
Edited on Fri, Aug 11 2006, 16:47 by Gorgarr

[Gorgarr]

Are you sure Nicolai could spawn from one of your cities???? This sounds incredibly weird to me...so weird that I thought directly it'sa a bug, and felt comfortable with cheating to come to the end of this infernal scenario...



I'm not sure of the time in which that happened... but it was not early in the game

[Sir_Toejam]

Ok, just for fun I was exploring underground with dirael, loaded with archliches (about 45), 8 ghost drags, 20 wraiths, 25 vamp lords, and a few dozen spectres and skellie archers. On this day, i had just finished some battles, and so mana was only at 60. She had sandro's cloak and a horseshoe for artifacts.



Lo and behold, i was ambushed by one of those HUGE skellie archer armies the AI has floating about. 2K+ archers, 9 spectral drags, 250 plague zombies, 85 spectres, 4 shadow dragons and 4 earth elementals (?). their hero was level 29, and almost all points had gone to defense, apparently (skellies had 24 defense).



I saved the battle right at the tactics stage, as I figured it would be a fun one... and it was. took 3 tries and i managed to crawl away with 10 archliches and 5 vamp lords left. No possible way she could have won that without sandro's cloak and high level dark magic.



I'm keeping that particular save in my archives, but it brought up another thought: I'm sure everybody here has had some great single battles. maybe we should upload a few with a brief description attached (like what skills and artifacts your hero has, what the approximate size and composition of the enemy army is, etc.). for those who just want to play a single fun battle, and try out some different tactics.



If you dl Gryphon's combat screen mod, you can save your own battles during tactics or combat, and anybody can load them with or without the mod.
Edited on Fri, Aug 11 2006, 17:14 by Sir_Toejam

[Sir_Toejam]

uh, I just confirmed the issue with little nicky respawning at town C. attacked him at the surface town nearest the two way portal from the underground, the nearest other town had a hero already occuping it. he immediately respawned at town c with a two months supply of high level troops.



Edit: He will spawn IN town C, regardless of whether or not the town is already occupied by a hero of your own.



yeah, you guessed it, instant combat ensues.



even more ridiculous.



at this point, I can't figure out any way to stop the turn hang that's reasonable. I'm going on record as saying patch 1.2 causes more harm than good for this particular mission, essentially making it unplayable under certain circumstances.



first gamestopping bug I've run into. Not terrible, but not so great either.



/edit



ridiculous.



I discovered this while i was trying to get rid of another bug: two days after i hit the surface from the underground, teal's turn hangs 2/3 of the way through.



has anybody managed to make it through this mission with 1.2 installed?



gees.



edit2:



Ok, If i cheat and move to the farthest SW town and take that one, the teal turn completes normally. everything else i tried failed to stop the hang on teal's turn, so something is up with that town/hero in the SW area, or else it's just that one of the towns needs to be clear for that turn for some reason. if you get a turn hang, try attacking the nearest town WITHOUT nicky in it, and see if that helps.





_Toejam
Edited on Fri, Aug 11 2006, 23:10 by Sir_Toejam