Fortress Walkthrough Complete

[Angelspit]

After a rather easy first campaign, things get trickier halfway through the Hammers of Fate expansion pack. For maltz, the third mission of the Fortress campaign at heroic forced him to replay the first two scenarios in order to build a "better" Wulfstan. He shares his tips with you so that you don't have to play the campaign twice.



Walkthroughs for <a href="/https://www.celestialheavens.com/676">The Guerrillas</a>, <a href="/https://www.celestialheavens.com/677">The Brothers</a> and <a href="/https://www.celestialheavens.com/677">Lazzlo</a> are now online, with screenshots, map size and level cap information, difficulty ratings and annotated maps. I won't talk about the scenarios here to avoid giving away any spoiler. Work on the third and final campaign has already started, so expect the final batch of articles very soon.

If you would like to take a look at the original page visit this link:
https://www.celestialheavens.com/676

[shep61]

Maltz, good job, again. One item you missed. The three stacks of defenders in the beginning actually serve a different purpose than you mention. When you say "OK" to them, they will actually attract the Andreas to a specific location on the map and he will be stuck there forever (unless you get too close to it). If you say cancel, nothing happens. If you say OK to more than one, the last one you touch will be the one that attracts Andreas. You must have said OK to one of them the second time you played, as it worked! The three stacks correspond to three different locations in the underground. The top one will send Andreas to the North area where the stat booster and war machine factory are. I don't recommend that one, since you want what is up there. The left one will send him to the SW corner, where the red gate is. I don't recommend that one either, since you want what's behind the red gate. The one on the bottom sends him to the East end, near the stairs there. That's the one I use, as it gets him out of the way.



Also, Helmar's escape route is influenced by Andreas' location. If he's in the North, Helmar goes to the East stairs. If Andreas is in the East, Helmar goes to the SW stairs.



Lastly, if you have Resurrection and Fireball w/ignite, I usually attack Andreas before I leave the underground. He has some very useful artifacts and usually he's fairly easy to defeat with minimal losses. That's personal preference, though.

[maltz]

Ok thanks a lot! I'll update the walkthrough now.

[Sir Charles]

The hero in Town "A", Valeria. A nod to the webmaster of Age of Heroes? I would guess so. If they want to honor someone from that site however, Sfidanza would've been a better choice IMO.

[mfisherman55]

help the prisoner just stands at the bottom of the stairway out and i have killed everything in the way. what is the secret?

[Ar.Pi]

Very good and interesting to read walkthrough, good job!



But why every1 say that when you Cancel for the 3 stacks of defenders they disappear and nothing happens? They actually join you and there is 11 in each stack which makes for a nice 33.

[merkantini]

Help, I am stuck too

I free Helmar from the prison but I do not get the Objective Complete nor the secondary objective to let him escape. He walks till one of the exits but does not climb up, after three weeks I get the Game over screen

Why does this happen? From what I saw mfisherman55 had my same problem. I have already killed Andreas, maybe this is the reason? Anyone can confirm this bug or has a way out of it? Your help will be greatly appreciated, thanks!



Yup, confirmed the damn bug You kill andreas before freeing Helmar, you get stuck forever, you don't get the objective complete and in 3 weeks you lose. I reloaded an early save game where I still had to kill Andreas, went straight to the prison and got the Objective Complete and the Secondary Objectives as normal

I hope this will help someone else in my same conditions
Edited on Tue, May 08 2007, 04:18 by merkantini

[wimfrits]

Very detailed walkthrough, good job!



Just played the map and have a few comments:



- the defender stacks that can entice the enemy patrol do not exactly 'disappear' when clicking cancel, they join your ranks. Enlisting 2 and letting the 3rd stack to entice the patrol is probably most efficient.

- taking the town may be tough, but all stacks are expendible at that time anyway since the town can reinforce your ranks sufficiently. The 440 defender / 4 godzilla army could be defeated with only spearwielders, skirmishers and defenders deployed although it was a tricky battle. It would be easier (though more costly) when deploying all units.

- As for the bonuses in 7 days; I think it does not need to be an issue; maybe only when Helmar does not pick exit number III. The 2 boosts in the NE section are far away from Merasgar, so if Helmar picks exit I or II, the player should pick up the 2 boosts in the bottom left part of the map before capturing Merasgar. If Helmar picks exit III, things are easy. Simply take the road passed the 2 boosts and the dragon utopia (and the joining magma dragon) instead of the direct road to the bridge. It requires just a little bit more movement, but not much since it also brings Wulfstan past a fresh pair of stables.

- I found that caravaning in units from the underground dwellings directly after capturing the town disrupted the gold caravan for a couple of days due to the narrow bridge (which might actually be an easier way to block it if necessary). Frustrating in my game, since Wulfstan was picking his nose for a week while the caravan went back and forth :/

[yeppados]

I did it on heroic and i got dark sorcery and destructive with ignite.

I found impossible to beat the town before exploring the map.

The defending hero army doesnt increase except for magma dragon and defenders. But exploring the map you will get a lot of stat points, a lot of army, a lot of artifact and by visiting the dragon utopia some missed spell.

Nearby the castle i had always the crown of sar-issu who gives +6 knowledge...

The battle tourned so very very easy having the puppetted enemy defenders attack the magma dragon and being halved ...the rest was fireball and about the magma dagon you can kill one each tourn by simply hitting it ith your hero orjill two with implosion.

[Naki]

Um, you have missed putting number 9 on the map (the Dragon Utopia).



Also, it would be nice to mention that the Dragon Utopia resets its state after some time, so you can visit it again to get more spells/etc.

The first time I visited it, it gave me just Town Portal + Armageddon.



But the second time, it gave me the much the better Implosion + Resurrection.

[Banedon]

I did this campaign easily after failing the first time (way too large Defender stack then). Wonder how wimfrits coped with the 440 Defender / 6 Godzilla stack...



Anyway the easy way to win this mission is speed, as it almost always is. Proceed as normal, but before trekking down to Helmar save the game (so as to see which direction Helmar runs in). If Helmar goes East, clear the stack guarding the underground passage first. After that, free Helmar, grab the Brawler stack (southwest) and run direct to the town. Take dwellings if they're nearby, but arrive ASAP.



In my game, if I remember right, I reached the town in the third week with a turn to spare. Helmar got himself killed by the stack guarding the underground passage, which I didn't clear (I cleared it, only for the stupid I-freed-Helmar-but-the-game-says-I-didn't bug to bust me), so no 50 Berserkers, but nevermind. Andreas got a little too close, so I beat him (with Fireball, it was no problem). Arriving early the army I faced was much smaller with just 2 Godzillas - crucial, since they're immune to Fireball so you have to physically attack them with Wulfstan. The battle was easy enough that Quick Combat won it for me. After that it was just Magma Dragons + Armageddon.



I had a pretty horrible build with Wulfstan, having gone for the Fortress ultimate (still didn't manage to reach it though), so I believe this can be done by anyone with Destructive Magic. I did get lucky though and found a Phoenix Fire Cape right from the start. I suspect however that the first artifact near Wulfstan's spawn augments one of the elements Cold, Fire or Lightning, so restarting often enough should be no problem.



PS: Your walkthroughs are excellent maltz, I refer to them a lot ^^
Edited on Tue, Feb 26 2008, 07:51 by Banedon

[Grail Quest]

I'm playing this mission in ToE using a mod, and so far I think the defender stack is a script error, because it looks like you are meant to follow Helmar out East, go NW and smash your army against the Dragon Utopia, pick up the Magma Dragon and carefully fight with magic (plus whatever troops you resurrected after Dragon Utopia) using the Rune of Res if you have it). Continue NW and go back down. Surprise surprise, you see the Red Tent nearby. Grab the key, go south. After several weeks, the dwellings you flagged now have tons of troops. Buy them, grab the Berserkers behind the keytent, re-emerge SW. Lots of troops here to collect, although you may run out of army slots. Pick them up, explore more, finally waste your army again in the NW city.

Playing it this way right now, hoping for the best. Anyone else tried this?

[Grail Quest]

Update - SUPER easy on Normal. I reach the castle after leisurely reaching the level cap and visiting all stat bonuses and after having half my army smashed in the Dragon Utopia shortly after exiting the underworld.

Valeria had 36 Crossbowmen, 5 Champions, 7 Battle Griffins, 106 Brutes, 10 Zealots, and war machines. Didn't bother to hire even when I approached within sight of the castle and ran out of MPs so that I had to attack next turn. Month 3, Week 1, Day 5.

Hmm...

[Dstr]

on Heroic:



I didn't take ANY magic skills and I DIDN'T restart the campaign. I'm sure after the second try I would have restarted and taken distructive magic

I'll tell you how I did it. My skills were: logistics, attack, luck, defense and leadership (I already used to choose it in H3 - unfortunately it distructive was a better choice as you stated ). My troops: 50 bersekers, 135 spearwielder, 133 skirmishers, 28 bear riders, 67 brawlers, 92 defenders, 2 thanes. I had NO MORE!! than 10 defenders casualties before fighting Valeria, this is very important and there were some battles.... I took all artefacts on my way to the town (3+3=6 spellpower and +50% to cold spells-> ice bolt was doing 342 damage ) I took the North road after having joined the skirmishers, directly to the castle so that Valeria's troops not raise to more than 4 Magma + 220 defenders.

I didn't attack Andreas as he had a very big army and this leaded to important casualties..... He was stuck in NE corner as you said.

When fighting Valeria i was keeping casting ice bolt on marksmen first, killed 25 once . I didn't killed all the ranged units, I left about 15 zealots and started to kill infantry... champions, and defenders etc. They were staying behind the walls waiting to be killed ))) stupid AI...

Valeria had 4 Godzillas and 220 defenders . I killed the Godzilla stack with skirmishers ... I had 90 spell points... letting me cast ice bolt for 13 times. Unfortunately zealots blinded the skirmishers and I had to use cleansing in the beginning of the battle.

anyways... it a very very hard mission

oh, another thing: I didn't use any rune I had only charge , berserking, magic control and exorcism... my infantry defended the skirmishers.

i'm sorry I didnt play H5 earlier... I din't know it was so captivating I could share ideas with you all. thanks all of you, I'm very happy with winning this without magic skills.
Edited on Thu, Jun 16 2011, 13:17 by Dstr

[Shimdra]

Normal v2.1



While the defenders didn't seem to distract Andreas at all, he seemed to have no clear idea what he was doing and I managed to intercept him as I escorted Helmar out the Northeast exit.



I didn't spend any time collecting stat bonuses or visiting any Utopia since my army wasn't getting any bigger and I knew a town was sitting far away that I had to take. When I got there however the hero had a mediocre army consisting solely of Renegade units. In fact, the AI didn't even seem to bother building any unit structures.



I spent the next week trying for stat bonuses nearby, but had to skip the mercenary camp as the last of my movement points had to go into grabbing the caravan before it left the map, merely half a day away from the camp.



Also: are there prisons nearby you recruited these heroes from? The tavern from the town won't allow me to hire anyone.
Edited on Thu, Jun 03 2010, 14:27 by Shimdra

[cjlee]

I had a very difficult time with this mission on Hard at first. Yet taking down Valeria was a breeze. My experience contrasts with everyone else who seem to think Valeria is tough but neutrals are easy. It had to do with the combo of skills my Wulfstan had.



For reasons beyond my control (i.e. bad luck), in my first two missions I was not offered any magic until level 9. By the end of mission 2 I was only at basic runelore, basic light and advanced destructive. I had only one destructive spell worth talking about, fireball.



My attack skill was what Maltz would probably call lower-than-miserably-low. SIX. My knowledge was pitiful also, at 6. Even with intelligence from enlightenment, I only had 90 mana max. Myspellpower was 14.



But what skills were they offering in the meantime? I got expert logistics with snatch.



So I started this map really badly off. Had to conserve mana, no resources to do rune of charge, etc. Every battle was very painful. My troops were cowering around the spear guys, who had to wait for enemy to get close as they had to conserve spears before I got the ammo cart. Wulfstan was carefully counting damage because he had such limited mana for blasting enemies.



I took the underground in a clockwise direction, so I had cleared the NW, NE and SE when I got to the prison. Helmar went NE, so I never went to the SW part of the underground.



When I got to the SE, I picked up boots of travel from area 4 on Maltz's map. Then I got the sawmill. Together with the 50 beserkers from Helmar, it turned the tide.



As you know, Snatch allows you to make many moves without using movement points. I was moving so fast that I managed to get to Valeria around Week 3 Day 4. That's right, even though Helmar emerged on the far NE of the surface, I even had enough time to rest and recover a bit of mana before attacking Valeria. I went to war against her with only 54 mana, but could have recovered more by waiting until Week 3 Day 7.



54 mana was more than enough!



Playing on hard, on week 3 Valeria has an army 3/4 the size Maltz faced, plus only 120 defenders and zero godzillas. All you need to decimate them is fireball!



I cast fireball only twice. Together with ignite and my beserkers, the enemy was destroyed pretty fast.



What made this map so hard during the first two weeks was the lack of wood and lack of a good offensive unit. (Six beserkers are not real offense compared to the enemy stacks you face.) What made it so easy to take down Valeria was my logistics skills. I know because I've played this on Hard before, maybe three years ago, and I got to the town in week 5 when the godzillas were a nightmare. Had to bunker down and use Wulfstan's hero attack to hurt the godzillas.



STRONGLY RECOMMEND: charge at top speed for this map. Don't waste time.
Edited on Mon, Jun 21 2010, 14:49 by cjlee

[ShadowLiberal]

Despite what this guide said I was able to explore the map and delay taking over the town for months, and than I easily won the siege. There were no magma dragons to fight, and only 700 shield guards. I did this on hard difficulty.

[ShadowLiberal]

Just replayed this mission on Heroic, with the TOTE's mod, and there were indeed lava dragons when I attacked this time, 30 of them, much tougher then the Haven army.



The first time I tried to beat the lava dragons down with everything I had, and I failed miserably.



The second time I kept my army back, only running in to kill the cavaliers that stood in the gate, and other men that passed the gate. While all this happened I cast firewall over the archers on my first turn, and then kept on using deep freeze on the lava dragons each turn.



Once the lava dragons were all that were left I sent all my melee units off in different directions, while Wulfstan continued to pound them with deep freeze, and my archers hit them. Eventually the lava dragons got close enough to one my archers that my bear riders were forced to fight. By that point the lava dragons were so weakened that I only lost 1/4 of my bear riders in their counter attack.



So in other words, it's STILL quite easy to take the town even if you sit around and wait for months.

[Wheeler Dealer]

2.1 Hard



I had trouble at the first. I never had enough wood or crystals to use the runes the way I wanted to. My first two missions had only gotten me to advanced destructive and advanced summoning magic with no level 4 spells! I had Fireball but not Ignite.



I sent all three stacks of defenders off to distract the patrols. I was never sure exactly what that did. Around the end of week one I was about to cross the bridge where the prison sign is and here came Andreas. I figured I was going to have to fight him, but that didn't work out so I reloaded and ran. He didn't seem too keen on chasing me and soon went back to whatever patrol route he was following.



I explored for a week improving my army and leveling up before I decided I had to make a run at the prison. Managed to get in and lead Helmar out without incident. Those 50 Berserkers were great! After a few days on the surface I went back underground and found the sawmill and crystal cavern! I never did fight Andreas.



Most of the mission I depended on my runelore to tip the odds. That and the crippling strike was how I kept my casualties to a minimum. There were a few occasions where I used trick of reloading and holding out a stack to change the random number seed. I don't much like doing that, but after taking some serious causalities in a battle where I was very unlucky (5 or six times my ethereal form didn't protect me and a dozen hits without one crippling strike) I reran the battle and left my defenders on the bench. Clean win, no casualties!



I pretty much cleared the entire map, got Summon Phoenix and Implosion from the Dragon Utopia just before I went after Valeria during week 2 of month 4. She had only red Haven troops along with about 600 Shieldguards. None of the creature dwellings had been built and the level one mage guild had not been constructed. Her army was pitiful compared to mine.



I spent the next few days building the Mage Guild to level 5 and one Creature building and it's upgrade. Then I went and chased down the caravan.



I had to pick my battles for a long time and I wasn't sure I had conserved my army well enough until I met Valeria and then I was sure I had been unnecessarily careful!



It was fun anyway!

[hprwhg12]

2.1 Heroic



I am writing this after completing the next mission "The Brothers" and am having slight trouble with the Thane vs. Champions tactic. I believe due to mana.



It is all this missions fault. I would have had 12+ knowledge. I was level 16 exp rune/exp light/exp destruct/exp logistics/avd. war mach. with 2 Att /7 Def /10 Pow/11 Knldg rushing Val mid third week. Who knows what the next 6 levels would have given me plus the last knowledge stat?



But, NOOOO!!!!



lol



Apparently, Circle of Winter/Freeze + Resurrect + Blind(scroll) + controlled ballistic + Meteor Shower with 110 mana does not perform as great as Fireball/Ignite + NO resurrect + controlled Ballistic with 70 mana



I had to restart THE entire Dwarf campaign. I am still bitter, and this being one mission afterwards too.



It is amazing the difference it made. I had less army by not having resurrect and stats were 5 Att/ 9 Def/ 11/ Pow/ 8 knldg. Again level 16 mid third week rushing Val. Not easy but won with still a throng of shooters.



It sucks that you are forced to go a certain route with leveling. I liked my previous set-up. It seems a bit rude. Nothing to do about it but complain to an empty thread. So i am ...lol. Good luck to all vs. val.