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The Necromancer → The Attack
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Bob Morane
- Leprechaun
- Posts: 19
- Joined: 06 Jan 2006
The Necromancer → The Attack
"you won’t get a proper attack from Orange for some time."
Not always, i had to restart this map twice, the first two times i played it, i was attacked by an orange hero in the middle of week 2, he had a large army and there were really no way i could fight against him. Third time i played, i managed to get all the undeads on the first island by the middle of week 2, so i was pretty much prepared for the attack ... that never happened.
My advice is get as many undead as you can early, so if orange attack, you will be prepared. Each time he attacked, he unboarded north of the windmill, not near the town.
Not always, i had to restart this map twice, the first two times i played it, i was attacked by an orange hero in the middle of week 2, he had a large army and there were really no way i could fight against him. Third time i played, i managed to get all the undeads on the first island by the middle of week 2, so i was pretty much prepared for the attack ... that never happened.
My advice is get as many undead as you can early, so if orange attack, you will be prepared. Each time he attacked, he unboarded north of the windmill, not near the town.
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Blue_Camel
- Galactic Gargle Blaster
- Posts: 42
- Joined: 06 Jan 2006
The Necromancer → The Attack
The attacks are mostly triggered by where your hero is when the patrols go by. If you stand a hero somewhat near the shore north of the windmill when the patrol is going by then orange will land and attack you. even if it's pretty early, it seems. this doesnt seem to happen if you dont come near the shore though.. then it just happens later via timed event. this is all terribly un-scientific but that's how it works as far as i can tell.
The Necromancer → The Attack
I'd have liked to cheat and just watch what the scripted heroes do, unfortunantly I don't know of a blacksheepwall cheat.
I've played this map three times now on varrious difficulties, and I've never had a decent attack from orange until after I could win..having said that, I did play similarly in all cases, so if the AI is ready to attack if it sees a chance to kill maybe I just didn't get clsoe enough for him to see...
I usually leave the boatyard until the last moment as I don't need it... so maybe that's it?
I've played this map three times now on varrious difficulties, and I've never had a decent attack from orange until after I could win..having said that, I did play similarly in all cases, so if the AI is ready to attack if it sees a chance to kill maybe I just didn't get clsoe enough for him to see...
I usually leave the boatyard until the last moment as I don't need it... so maybe that's it?
~ Rapier.
The Necromancer → The Attack
Not sure whether this is true before patch 1.2... there is a Sylvana(?) Ancient (level-up tree) south of Lorekeep, somewhere close to the lumber mil. 
Edited on Mon, Jul 31 2006, 06:51 by maltz
Edited on Mon, Jul 31 2006, 06:51 by maltz
The Necromancer → The Attack
"you won’t get a proper attack from Orange for some time."
This is true, as long as you don't expose your base to any shore. Once you and your base is expose to any shore (the shores are on the left side of the island only), orange will land and attack you.
My suggestion is to collect as much undead troops without exposing you and your base to any shore. This can be done by not attacking the colussu (just on the left side of your town) and the archers guarding the wind mill on the left side of the island. There are throng of skeleton archers and wrights on the right side of the map, and vampires on the left side of the map. After getting the skeleton archers, wrights and vampire, use markel to attack the colussu on the left of your town (because he has better spell power). Attack the colussu using markel with 7 groups of single skeleton. You can easily kill them using your magic spell icebolt/lightning bolt. And then collect the lich just above it. Done ! and just chill around the shore and wait for orange to land. Now it should be quite easy to take out orange.
cheers !
This is true, as long as you don't expose your base to any shore. Once you and your base is expose to any shore (the shores are on the left side of the island only), orange will land and attack you.
My suggestion is to collect as much undead troops without exposing you and your base to any shore. This can be done by not attacking the colussu (just on the left side of your town) and the archers guarding the wind mill on the left side of the island. There are throng of skeleton archers and wrights on the right side of the map, and vampires on the left side of the map. After getting the skeleton archers, wrights and vampire, use markel to attack the colussu on the left of your town (because he has better spell power). Attack the colussu using markel with 7 groups of single skeleton. You can easily kill them using your magic spell icebolt/lightning bolt. And then collect the lich just above it. Done ! and just chill around the shore and wait for orange to land. Now it should be quite easy to take out orange.
cheers !
The Necromancer → The Attack
If Im not wrong, there should be a spell shrine with the spell "phantom forces" on the small, brown island to the north east from where you start. Should make your battles a bit easier. Just make sure you have basic summoning magic to get it.
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Roland0705
- Lurker
- Posts: 1
- Joined: 29 Jun 2006
The Necromancer → The Attack
Please, I'm new in this game, and I have a problem with Temptation mission in Necromancer campagne. I'am finished all tasks ( 2 task), Isabela cut scene finished, and after that I don't now what I to do. Please Help
The Necromancer → The Attack
I found the orange landings triggered by taking the spell wheel north of the initial town, but maybe that was just because it's activity visible from the Orange patrol ships. I'm finding this scenario was a bit dull. There are distinct phases: buildup on the south island, nip through to the mainland, take the undead town, then slowwwwwwly build it, then go to the final battle. The first orange landing is dangerous (on Hard anyway) but I never felt under real pressure. On the other hand, by going around slowly and collecting xp's and so on as suggested in the Walkthrough, I've found the final defnding army impossibly huge (on Hard), and have to reload and accumulate forces. Since Orange will take the southern town it's not clear that this arms race can be won, and it may be better at Hard/Heroic to skip the optimal skill increases and head for the final battle before the defence builds too much.
Roland, if you're still stuck, you need to post your query at the Temptation walkthrough, or put a query on the forum.
Edited on Mon, Aug 14 2006, 02:14 by NickMP
Roland, if you're still stuck, you need to post your query at the Temptation walkthrough, or put a query on the forum.
Edited on Mon, Aug 14 2006, 02:14 by NickMP
The Necromancer → The Attack
Further comment: I'm still struggling with this one. In 1.2 with Hard, it's definitely not true that you only get one serious Orange attack. I've fought two major battles with him on the southern mainland, then struggled onto the island with the observatory and been beaten by Faiz, landing in a third ship. In my earlier effort, I did best off Orange for long enough to take Lorekeep (while he overran my old base), but by then he had 23 Titans outside his home, too much for the forseeable future.
The Necromancer → The Attack
Final comment: Eventually managed this by slow buildup, and because on reload the final city was defended not by 23 Titans (nasty shooters) but 23 Colossi (wimpish bodyy-builder types). Tough, though.
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wasdqwerty
- Leprechaun
- Posts: 6
- Joined: 07 Sep 2006
The Necromancer → The Attack
i maxed out godric (lv 24) back in C1M5 but here he appears to be cut off at lv 10 back here, same as markal. is this supposed to happen? he still has the skill builds i have him back in C1M5 but only cut off at lv 10, unlike wad the walkthrough here says...
The Necromancer → The Attack
I got outnumbered by the main Orange army here. I think I should speed up this mission so I could attack them before they get a lot of creatures. Would it help?
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Grail Quest
- Scout
- Posts: 181
- Joined: 13 Jun 2007
The Necromancer → The Attack
It's Month 1 Week 4, and Orange still hasn't attempted a beachhead. I wonder if standing too close to shore, or having a too-powerful Godric, has anything to do with it.
In any case, I landed Markal on the northern island after darting over more or less straightaway. It did take a reload, I'll admit, and I also sent Rutger as a decoy westward. I landed on the beach, and the Orange ship followed Rutger all the way east. But when Rutger turned north on the narrow strait between the island and the map edge, Orange held steady.
I wonder if the Orange blockade isn't supposed to do anything other than blockade, and does not pursue if you are out of their patrol range or on land. Maybe all the attacks mentioned are script glitches??
*
Once I took LoreKeep, ships started to land on the north side. A quick look at the Console showed that the Patrol script was terminated for 2 of the ships. Hmm...
Edited on Thu, Aug 02 2007, 18:20 by Grail Quest
In any case, I landed Markal on the northern island after darting over more or less straightaway. It did take a reload, I'll admit, and I also sent Rutger as a decoy westward. I landed on the beach, and the Orange ship followed Rutger all the way east. But when Rutger turned north on the narrow strait between the island and the map edge, Orange held steady.
I wonder if the Orange blockade isn't supposed to do anything other than blockade, and does not pursue if you are out of their patrol range or on land. Maybe all the attacks mentioned are script glitches??
*
Once I took LoreKeep, ships started to land on the north side. A quick look at the Console showed that the Patrol script was terminated for 2 of the ships. Hmm...
Edited on Thu, Aug 02 2007, 18:20 by Grail Quest
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Grail Quest
- Scout
- Posts: 181
- Joined: 13 Jun 2007
The Necromancer → The Attack
Tried it again on Heroic and finally beat it. Confusion and Frenzy were absolutely crucial.
It will probably be impossible at all difficulty levels to muster a superior force against Hikm. If you @OpenCircleFog to have a look, Hikm and all Orange ships start with the same number of troops on Normal as they do on Heroic. This means even if you breach the walls quickly (though you will still take serious damage from the mines) you are at a disadvantage, possibly an even worse one as you now have to contend with all their melee units charging out at you.
Instead, a good tactic is to use their numbers against them. Inferno mission 3 should have already shown you that if, as in the typical case, Gilraen got the Frenzy scroll before you did.
At the start, choose which troops you want to use against Hikm. With patch 1.5/2.1, thousands of skeletons archers are no longer possible, so if you choose Undead, you should try to secure Lorekeep and the island quickly. If you choose Haven troops, you have maybe a week or more of travel just to get your troops to Hikm. Either way, buy low-level troops in their base model and use the Hill Fort to upgrade them on your final run toward Hikm. It's cheaper to upgrade low-level troops there. Cash and resources are plentiful after 6 weeks or so, but don't dally in accumulating Haven troops in case Orange lands on your island unexpectedly.
Use Markal exclusively for the main reason that you want to level him up to 20 as quickly as possible so that you will get the maximum amount of joins from neutral undead stacks. Use Godric only if you are going to spend your Haven troops taking out the Orange ships for Markal, which will preserve some undead troops; but if you fight cautiously, none of the undead losses will be significant. Instead, use Markal for fights also because he can maintain troop numbers, whereas Godric with Haven troops will have a harder time unless he has Resurrection. And even then, it will be 3-4 weeks before he can buy Cavaliers or Angels to make that tactic worthwhile, whereas Markal can have nearly 20 Wights (and maybe a handful of Wraiths) before leaving the southern island -- that's excluding the freebie stack on the east side.
In the very early game (first week or so, probably not once you get around 6-10 wights), get skeleton archers and cannon fodder your zombies if necessary. For example, field only zombies to take hits from archers and mages while you destroy them with magic, then resurrect what you can before combat ends. In such cases, you may in fact find it useful to put Mark of the Necromancer on your zombies instead of the enemy, although this tactic will very quickly be less useful than putting it on the large to huge enemy stacks you will face.
You should try to hit colossus, titan, and rakshasa stacks with as full a Dark Magic Pool as possible to maximize Wight and Wraith production (and upgrade your Wights when you reach the Hill Fort). There are a lot of rakshasa stacks, so this is a viable strategy, versus the tediousness of shipping up Haven reinforcements. Ignore even the potential of getting liches in favour of these units. These Wights will be what helps you survive all the attacks from the orange ships, and will be useful when Rakshasa stacks are 100-150 strong. The other units will be completely obsolete against the powerful neutral stacks and your losses against Orange will be too devastating. With wights, you can often field just the single large stack and come out of even really big fights virtually unscathed. With leftover Dark Magic points, get liches and skeleton archers if possible. Everything else is more or less useless as the large neutral stacks of them joining you will make their contribution insignificant.
You may not wish to bother with the magic bow guarded by titans. The titans will destroy your army and you cannot afford that, certainly not until the Orange ships are neutralized. Besides, even 300-600 archers (of any type) will be virtually destroyed in the opening rounds of combat against Hikm anyway. Pre-1.5, when every fight gave you skeleton archers, it was beautiful to have. With the Dark Magic Pool system, it's much less useful.
Since all orange ships will eventually come at you, you may wish to fight them at sea as ships are separated by 2 gangplanks, limiting access. And with a single large stack of wights doing most of the fighting, you will want to limit access to them.
In the final fight against Hikm, Dark Magic was absolutely crucial for me. I recommend opening with Mass Confusion as the Archmages are horrible. You likely have a lot of troops, and one blast can blow through one or two stacks (if they are diagonally opposite on the battlefield) on the way to your archers or catapult. One shot followed by one shot from the Titans can finish off your archer stack before you get to really use it.
After Mass Confusion, depending on your mana level and what the initiative bar looks like, either go for Mark of the Necromancer; or Mass Decay against their units gathered around the mages; or start with Frenzy to whittle away their shooters with their strong melee units. Frenzy is superior to Puppetmaster because it will not decrease initiative position. Therefore, you can hit a stack knowing whether the enemy can intercept it or not; with Puppetmaster, the AI will usually dispel as soon as possible, meaning both your turns are nulled, except they've got a deeper mana pool than you, and you need to do damage for your mana pool to compete.
As the AI will probably not be able to intercept your Frenzy, it will instead spam Phantom Force, primarily on their genies. Try to keep one Spike Stones or Curse of the Netherworld handy for clearing Phantom Forces.
Outside the walls, defend with your stronger non-shooters and don't move them too close to the wall or they might get hit by a Phantom Force of Genies. Keep your ghosts mobile to try to block the landing zones of genies flying over the wall to hit your stronger stacks; being incorporeal, they will likely survive a first strike unscathed and if you have a big enough stack (there's maybe a hundred or so on the Lorekeep island) you can return a devastating retaliation. Your strong stacks, such as Death Knights (on Heroic, I got 62! on the Lorekeep island) are needed in the late stage to mop up. In the worst case, they need to simply survive to let you win with magic alone.
*
Note that the Death Knights on the small island will fight Markal despite his special ability. And there are a LOT of them guarding too few vampires to really be worth it.
*
On the Lorekeep island, you may not want to pick up undead stacks right away, even if they are blocking undead dwellings. Dwellings have moderate flat weekly growth, versus a compounding rate of up to 11% per week for neutral stacks left on the map. Do the math before picking them up. Remember that you'll pick up 90% for FREE when you're ready, and they are generally just damage soaks anyway.
*
Whichever character has the ability to learn level 3-5 Destruction or Summoning magic should take Hikm if possible, as you will learn spells from Hikm before you leave this map.
Edited on Tue, Aug 07 2007, 10:50 by Grail Quest
It will probably be impossible at all difficulty levels to muster a superior force against Hikm. If you @OpenCircleFog to have a look, Hikm and all Orange ships start with the same number of troops on Normal as they do on Heroic. This means even if you breach the walls quickly (though you will still take serious damage from the mines) you are at a disadvantage, possibly an even worse one as you now have to contend with all their melee units charging out at you.
Instead, a good tactic is to use their numbers against them. Inferno mission 3 should have already shown you that if, as in the typical case, Gilraen got the Frenzy scroll before you did.
At the start, choose which troops you want to use against Hikm. With patch 1.5/2.1, thousands of skeletons archers are no longer possible, so if you choose Undead, you should try to secure Lorekeep and the island quickly. If you choose Haven troops, you have maybe a week or more of travel just to get your troops to Hikm. Either way, buy low-level troops in their base model and use the Hill Fort to upgrade them on your final run toward Hikm. It's cheaper to upgrade low-level troops there. Cash and resources are plentiful after 6 weeks or so, but don't dally in accumulating Haven troops in case Orange lands on your island unexpectedly.
Use Markal exclusively for the main reason that you want to level him up to 20 as quickly as possible so that you will get the maximum amount of joins from neutral undead stacks. Use Godric only if you are going to spend your Haven troops taking out the Orange ships for Markal, which will preserve some undead troops; but if you fight cautiously, none of the undead losses will be significant. Instead, use Markal for fights also because he can maintain troop numbers, whereas Godric with Haven troops will have a harder time unless he has Resurrection. And even then, it will be 3-4 weeks before he can buy Cavaliers or Angels to make that tactic worthwhile, whereas Markal can have nearly 20 Wights (and maybe a handful of Wraiths) before leaving the southern island -- that's excluding the freebie stack on the east side.
In the very early game (first week or so, probably not once you get around 6-10 wights), get skeleton archers and cannon fodder your zombies if necessary. For example, field only zombies to take hits from archers and mages while you destroy them with magic, then resurrect what you can before combat ends. In such cases, you may in fact find it useful to put Mark of the Necromancer on your zombies instead of the enemy, although this tactic will very quickly be less useful than putting it on the large to huge enemy stacks you will face.
You should try to hit colossus, titan, and rakshasa stacks with as full a Dark Magic Pool as possible to maximize Wight and Wraith production (and upgrade your Wights when you reach the Hill Fort). There are a lot of rakshasa stacks, so this is a viable strategy, versus the tediousness of shipping up Haven reinforcements. Ignore even the potential of getting liches in favour of these units. These Wights will be what helps you survive all the attacks from the orange ships, and will be useful when Rakshasa stacks are 100-150 strong. The other units will be completely obsolete against the powerful neutral stacks and your losses against Orange will be too devastating. With wights, you can often field just the single large stack and come out of even really big fights virtually unscathed. With leftover Dark Magic points, get liches and skeleton archers if possible. Everything else is more or less useless as the large neutral stacks of them joining you will make their contribution insignificant.
You may not wish to bother with the magic bow guarded by titans. The titans will destroy your army and you cannot afford that, certainly not until the Orange ships are neutralized. Besides, even 300-600 archers (of any type) will be virtually destroyed in the opening rounds of combat against Hikm anyway. Pre-1.5, when every fight gave you skeleton archers, it was beautiful to have. With the Dark Magic Pool system, it's much less useful.
Since all orange ships will eventually come at you, you may wish to fight them at sea as ships are separated by 2 gangplanks, limiting access. And with a single large stack of wights doing most of the fighting, you will want to limit access to them.
In the final fight against Hikm, Dark Magic was absolutely crucial for me. I recommend opening with Mass Confusion as the Archmages are horrible. You likely have a lot of troops, and one blast can blow through one or two stacks (if they are diagonally opposite on the battlefield) on the way to your archers or catapult. One shot followed by one shot from the Titans can finish off your archer stack before you get to really use it.
After Mass Confusion, depending on your mana level and what the initiative bar looks like, either go for Mark of the Necromancer; or Mass Decay against their units gathered around the mages; or start with Frenzy to whittle away their shooters with their strong melee units. Frenzy is superior to Puppetmaster because it will not decrease initiative position. Therefore, you can hit a stack knowing whether the enemy can intercept it or not; with Puppetmaster, the AI will usually dispel as soon as possible, meaning both your turns are nulled, except they've got a deeper mana pool than you, and you need to do damage for your mana pool to compete.
As the AI will probably not be able to intercept your Frenzy, it will instead spam Phantom Force, primarily on their genies. Try to keep one Spike Stones or Curse of the Netherworld handy for clearing Phantom Forces.
Outside the walls, defend with your stronger non-shooters and don't move them too close to the wall or they might get hit by a Phantom Force of Genies. Keep your ghosts mobile to try to block the landing zones of genies flying over the wall to hit your stronger stacks; being incorporeal, they will likely survive a first strike unscathed and if you have a big enough stack (there's maybe a hundred or so on the Lorekeep island) you can return a devastating retaliation. Your strong stacks, such as Death Knights (on Heroic, I got 62! on the Lorekeep island) are needed in the late stage to mop up. In the worst case, they need to simply survive to let you win with magic alone.
*
Note that the Death Knights on the small island will fight Markal despite his special ability. And there are a LOT of them guarding too few vampires to really be worth it.
*
On the Lorekeep island, you may not want to pick up undead stacks right away, even if they are blocking undead dwellings. Dwellings have moderate flat weekly growth, versus a compounding rate of up to 11% per week for neutral stacks left on the map. Do the math before picking them up. Remember that you'll pick up 90% for FREE when you're ready, and they are generally just damage soaks anyway.
*
Whichever character has the ability to learn level 3-5 Destruction or Summoning magic should take Hikm if possible, as you will learn spells from Hikm before you leave this map.
Edited on Tue, Aug 07 2007, 10:50 by Grail Quest
The Necromancer → The Attack
man ive tried this three times on effing normal and it sucks! godric is weak, markal is weak, the orange a-holes are way strong and even though i can beat one of them with the stack of wights and about 90 marksmen from the haven town, plus about 90 skelarchers that joined, it leaves me way too weak for the next orange army! markal has like, 20 mana, and no good spells! the orange armies attack mid-2nd week- no way i can have cavaliers by then?! what gives with this stoopid level? godric, who i had very tough back in the haven campaign, is useless here- skills, stats, everything is trimmed right back... i have unpatched version. and im on dialup in thwe middle of nowhere so its gonna stay that way haha. one more try and then i think i will can hommv...waaaaaaa!
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Ravenheart87
- Scout
- Posts: 165
- Joined: 18 Dec 2006
- Location: Gyor, Hungary
The Necromancer → The Attack
I don't know, I finished this level unpatched (last summer), on normal difficulty, and found it not so hard. Why didn't you patch the game? After 1.1 you can try it on easy, perhaps it won't be so hard.
Edited on Sun, Apr 20 2008, 07:47 by Ravenheart87
Edited on Sun, Apr 20 2008, 07:47 by Ravenheart87
The Necromancer → The Attack
um, oh yeah well i read some advice below and stayed away from the shores ec.. it worked. once i could keep the orange dudes from attacking i had the chance to build up. pretty str8 forward after that. now for my next freakout...
The Necromancer → The Attack
I hope, some guru would read this thread
Actually, how much of Godric's experience gets actually transferred into this mission? I've left him at ~ level 11 after C1M5 but here, he starts at level 10... Does the game downgrade him automatically? 'Cause seems he got all spells/skills from C1M5...
Also, I've missed the point that Godric would be transferred further, that's why I didn't pimp him up much. OK, so I've loaded a C1M5 savegame, and spent a happy month or so chasing poor bystanders on the map so he's now level 19, and knows much more spells. Hmm, dunno where did he got it (definitely not in Haven town) but he has even Instant Travel spell, so I was even able to teleport through the harrison near Inferno town and capture it to learn even more spells.
This done, I'm finishing C1, starting C3M2 (since it's available in menu) and... oops, I got the same mediocre level 10 Godric. Probably, the game picked up the character version 1.0
I've also tried to go through C3M1 again after loading a save with Godric v2.0 - but to no avail... The same level 10 dude suspiciously resembling (judging by the spellbook) good old Godric v1.0
And worst of all, I get enemy descending on me at day 6, and the dude is level 16 Wizard (is this "the boss"?)... I have strong feeling I can defeat him with a stronger hero - but up for now, the best result I have is still defeat with the enemy left with just ~ 10% of his army.
So - anyone knows? Is there a way to make the game pick up the stronger version of Godric without reinstalling the game and going through all the missions from scratch - or hacking the savegame files?
Actually, how much of Godric's experience gets actually transferred into this mission? I've left him at ~ level 11 after C1M5 but here, he starts at level 10... Does the game downgrade him automatically? 'Cause seems he got all spells/skills from C1M5...
Also, I've missed the point that Godric would be transferred further, that's why I didn't pimp him up much. OK, so I've loaded a C1M5 savegame, and spent a happy month or so chasing poor bystanders on the map
so he's now level 19, and knows much more spells. Hmm, dunno where did he got it (definitely not in Haven town) but he has even Instant Travel spell, so I was even able to teleport through the harrison near Inferno town and capture it to learn even more spells.This done, I'm finishing C1, starting C3M2 (since it's available in menu) and... oops, I got the same mediocre level 10 Godric. Probably, the game picked up the character version 1.0
I've also tried to go through C3M1 again after loading a save with Godric v2.0 - but to no avail... The same level 10 dude suspiciously resembling (judging by the spellbook) good old Godric v1.0
And worst of all, I get enemy descending on me at day 6, and the dude is level 16 Wizard (is this "the boss"?)... I have strong feeling I can defeat him with a stronger hero - but up for now, the best result I have is still defeat with the enemy left with just ~ 10% of his army.
So - anyone knows? Is there a way to make the game pick up the stronger version of Godric without reinstalling the game and going through all the missions from scratch - or hacking the savegame files?
The Necromancer → The Attack
Played normal difficulty. When one enemy hero landed on an island, I tried something interesting. I occupied all boats (hired some dummy heroes) and summoned his boat. Then he stood still on the island. Planned to fight him when I needed experience. But I could reach leval cap, so I left him there without fighting him.
Edited on Sun, Jan 10 2010, 10:35 by tsangsir
Edited on Sun, Jan 10 2010, 10:35 by tsangsir
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