Hammers of Fate → Ylaya's Quest → The Spy

[shep61]

If you would like to take a look at the original page visit this link:
https://www.celestialheavens.com/679

[shep61]

Maltz, some additional color on this one. Without the additional neutral stack joining you, it's impossible to beat the druids without losing many furies. If you remove the furies and witches from the battle, it's unwinnable, and if you include them, they die. I had empowered lightning and fireball, with 50 mana points! I hit every luck and morale booster before the battle, and I still could not beat three stacks of 13 druids without considerable losses, mostly furies.



I contend that without the dwarves joining you, you would have had the same problem. Moreover, after 15 or so restarts, I could never get ANY neutral stack to join me, so you were very lucky with the dwarves joining you.



Seems to me the only way to minimize this is to rush the druids and face less of them. Weaker hero, but might offset in your favor. Otherwise, expect to lose many furies........ All of this is on heroic, of course.



Just thought this should be added, since your walkthrough seems to depend on a very rare occurrence.
Edited on Wed, Mar 07 2007, 10:58 by shep61

[maltz]

Yeah, many heroic mission ones are all about restarting. I remember how much I wanted to nuke Raelag's quarter fro all those assassins, sprites, grimlin masters and skeleton archers that kept showing up guarding the sawmill and portal. :p
Edited on Wed, Mar 07 2007, 18:22 by maltz

[shep61]

This mission is killing me! I've already done the entire campaign on heroic, but I didn't do the side quest on this mission. With the benefit it gives, I'd like try it. I lose half my army or more to the druids. Then I get resurrection and complete the side quest. Then I face 80+ liches or priests in the final battle with no way to beat them, even with ressurection! I've restarted 20+ times!

[Elvin]

Well, that explains my attack stats in mission 2!

[maltz]

In the original game all regular neutral stacks grow by 11% per week on heroic. So if you have an earlier save, you can kill the liches first, then go on to finish the sidequest. (This is what I did) By the way, the sidequest stacks don't grow over time. I saw it in the map file.

[shep61]

Cool. Good idea. Thanks.

[Nebs]

Just to encourage other players who wish to play with different skills than what you suggested...the campaign is quite doable.

I went with dark magic, enlightment, war machines and luck. And with Ylaya, there weren't much problems (not so with Isabel, she was quite weak in M4). Guess that bonus in first mission is tremendous help, that even war machines (atleast ballista) is extremly useful. With enlightment my stats grew quicker (here's screenshot of stats in M4 with some artifact help - even without them, still quite high), and dark magic...it's absolutelly the funnest magic school, it's a joy to cast numerous useful spells from there. And luck is luck. Not sure when I didn't take it when offered.

Guess other combinations would work, though I agree, with destructive magic, it's easiest.

Great job on walkthrough btw.

In this particular mission I had more troubles with throng of ghosts than with druids (had 29 druids, lost 6 furies, and 2 unupgraded...um, furies, forgot the name :-))...and after that, ress scroll is near, and with it, rest was easy.

[Pave]

I seem to have a problem with the sidequest. I've killed all the stacks I was supposed to get rid of, the puzzle map is completely uncovered but the side quest is not completed. When I visit the hut where I've obtained the quest nothing happens. Is this a bug or am I doing something wrong? Has anyone encoutered this as well?

[DanTanna]

I'm having the same problem with the sidequest. I've killed everything at the huts and no bonus. Is it worth doing the whole mission over to get these stat boosts. My character is perfect right now.



Found the problem! There is another seer's hut that Maltz missed on his map! In the underground there is another Hut just NE of the red X and it is guarded by air elementals. It took me months of wandering around. When I killed the air elementals and visited the hut I finished the quest! Word.
Edited on Tue, Apr 10 2007, 10:48 by DanTanna

[Magelord]

Heh heh... I must be the only guy to pick up the 32 Hell hounds for free! Them combined with Tactics(which was the very second skill upgrade I got) plus the 33 Maidens I bought at the warlock tower ment that I got the drop on every archer stack in this scenario total losses after scenario completion 3 Blood Maiden and 3 Hellhounds period!
Edited on Thu, Apr 12 2007, 21:11 by Magelord

[Ar.Pi]

Good Walkthrough! Thanks!



I passed this mission without taking any Spell Book. I was using Mass Haste (Power of Speed) and combined with Luck and that Scroll of Resurrection i lost 14 Blood Furies (13 by the Druids) and 1 Minotaur Guard in the end.



Read this thread on how:

viewtopic.php?t=6192
Edited on Wed, Apr 18 2007, 16:27 by Ar.Pi

[Orfinn]

I didnt get to a single spell in this mission and one of the shrines have a nasty stack of hunters, how can I then survive the stack of Druid Elders?

[spytor]

Well, my comment seems to be a little overdue, but ...

This mission is possible to finish with zero losses. Patch 2.1, heroic, no lucky neutral stack joins, completely unlucky spell shrines (Cleansing, Raise Dead, Confusion, Phantom Forces - last spell got way too late, used it for the last fight only). I have not even chosen secrets of destruction so whole mission no help from destructive spells at all. My choice of bonus were boots of open road. It certainly helped to get evrywhere faster so the growing stacks did not grew that much Only BIG trouble are the Elder Druids. Got 37, but with a good distribution of units and with help of luck and morale, everything is possible

P.S.: I did not choose Leadership, maltz is correct to suggest taking Luck though.

[amigonian]

I've noticed that the stack at D3 is missing, reset mission three times and still no go. Any feedback on how to get the missing piece of the puzzle would be good.

[Grail Quest]

The bonus for the Seer Quest is HUGE on Heroic. BUT -- if you are playing the ToE mod that allows you to play H5 and HoF campaigns in ToE, the quest is broken. When you visit the Seer's Hut, you get no new quest, and if you look at the console, it indicates there was an error message.

Visiting each hut appears to be necessary to trigger quest completion.

[Grail Quest]

Should have indicated the link for the H5/HoF in Toe mod -- it is at this French site, but there is an English page: http://www.heroes-fr.com/en/original_campaigns.php

[Vampirlord17]

ive got luck, the secret of destruction gave me fireball, and 2 spell shrine s gave me Circle of winter, and the other ice spell that targets 1 foe. the next mission will be a piece of cake

[cjlee]

First time I played it I was also lucky. Got the shieldguards to join me, which greatly helped especially by saving my furies from the costly battle against the druids. I was able to complete the secondary quest without too much difficulty.



Second time I played it, it was impossible to complete the secondary quest. Nearly all the portals to the neutral stacks were guarded by Water Elementals!



I don't ever remember fighting water elementals first time round.

[ShadowLiberal]

A tip, rush the druids ASAP, as in sometime during the first week before they have time to grow, especially on Heroic.



I took the druids on with a level 3 hero with a nearly useless ballista and first aid tent added to my starting army (I won just enough gold to buy them along the way). My only casualties were 3 witches and 1 minotaur (I left the furies out of the battle)



Also Grail Quest is correct, the all campaigns in TOTE mod is bugged here. I wasn't able to complete the side quest for the big stat gains, so I did a bit of math based on Maltz's screenshot of his stats, and my own at level 12, and figured out that the stat gain is +17 attack (unless it's somewhat random, I recall getting a bit of defense last time around and not quite as much attack). So I gave myself +17 attack power at the end of the mission to fix the bug.



Oh and this mission and the next one CAN be done in Heroic without destructive magic. At higher levels expert war machines can be quite powerful, and you can buy war machines both missions with no towns, especially with triple flaming ballista and first aid tent (I have to admit though I use a mod to give my tent more shots per battle, but even with 3 it would still be quite useful). The ballista is easily more powerful then any of your spells could ever be with the big stat bonus in this mission.



In later missions I had an insanely high attack (40 attack + 14 knowledge by mission #4), which made the ballista far more powerful then any destructive spell, considering each of the 3 hits did over 400 damage each.



I also picked up Dark & Summoning Magic (vampirism works great with high attack stats), and sorcery.
Edited on Sat, Jun 30 2012, 20:10 by ShadowLiberal