The Ranger → The Defense

[GatorG]

If you would like to take a look at the original page visit this link:
https://www.celestialheavens.com/584

[GatorG]

Nice information about restarting the mission if you don't get resurrect.



Another hint, if people want to do it, is that the purple hero sometimes buys the dragon structure for you...lol. If you want to keep restarting until they do. Saves a good bit of money and resources can be hard to come by. Although it can take 10 restarts+ to get them to do it.



A second hint is when you're going for the second town with Findan remember to swing east first (after landing west) and grab the gold mine and other mines before going west and taking the town.



A third hint is to remember your favored enemy. The purple hero changes the make up of their army and you should change your favored enemy accordingly (and on Findan also if you get a chance).



A fourth hint is to remember to visit the +1 morale after each battle. G (-:



edit - I haven't played patch 1.2 yet, so I don't know the changes they've made.
Edited on Thu, Jul 27 2006, 09:51 by GatorG

[maltz]

Ops I forgot the favorite enemy part. I will add them in now. Thanks!

[Orfinn]

Hmm its mentioned Resurection quite often here, Im supposed to teach other heroes Res by gaining the enlightment skill in the beginning of the campaign? Or just scourging the map for boosters making my other heroes be able to learn Res too?

[maltz]

Once the hero has Expert Light Magic, you can make them visit a town that has the Resurrection spell in its lv 5 mage guild, or "touch them" with another hero who has learned it, when one of the heroes has the scholar feat.
Edited on Thu, Jul 27 2006, 12:46 by maltz

[canerata7]

This map is just impossible in Heroic v1.2!!! It's just impossible!

Anyone?

Please tell me what you had in Findan's army after the first battle if you did it with patch 1.2 ( Heroic difficulty please, don't tell me "man that was easy...")

[maltz]

Please tell me what you had in Findan's army after the first battle if you did it with patch 1.2

Just curious, what is the difference between 1.2 and before on this mission?

[GatorG]

Ok, I'm on this mission in 1.2 also on Heroic difficulty. First, you wait a turn and grab the money chest. Then, verify that the purple hero bought a dragon (meaning you don't have to purchase a dragon dwelling). If not, restart. You can't hold back your Dragons because the Necro army destroyed me when I tried that strategy.



The best I've done so far is 5 Dragons left and little of the rest of my army hurt. You have to garrison Findan for the first two purple heroes while a bought hero gathers all the resources in the water (going through the whirlpool also) because you lose too much if you try the level 1 hero. Buy a Capitol with your 10000gp.



After the first two necro heroes i bought a boat. Then, I took findan to take the next castle (with a garrisoned Necro hero) with something like 15 master hunters, 13 upgraded treants, and 8 druids or whatever. I won the battle with one upgraded treant left. It's a balance of leaving enough to defend your capitol and yet still be able to take the next town.



Take the level 1 hero to your capitol and buy another hero to get in the first boat and see if you can capture the hunter lodge to the east and get back in the boat without a teal hero killing you. (I was able to do this on the end and beginning of the week so I had 14 hunters). Take these hunters either to the level 1 hero or findan by boat because if you don't the teal player got in the boat and attacked my capitol the same day a purple hero was attacking and I couldn't win both battles.



This is the point I'm at now. A level 5/6 hero in the capitol and Findan with no army, but a second castle captured. And working my way up to a level 5 magic guild in the second town.



Basically this map is a map of balance and surviving until you can get strong enough to push further.



(Note - I haven't tried the strategy of attacking the purple hero outside my capitol yet though to see if i lose fewer creatures).



G (-:

[maltz]

I haven't played this map on 1.2 yet (the patch came out during my Academy campaign). I will try to get to this mission in the near future and do some updates of strategies. So far I've noticed that the neutrals are modified.

The purple heroes only grows stronger, so the later you let your lv 1 hero to face it, the harder the battle is. Or the initial purple heroes were more powerful than the rest?

[GatorG]

I think they've changed some things Maltz...I've played this map a couple of times throughout the patches and I don't remember having to leave Findan in for the first two Purple heroes either. But now they whittle enough of your forces down that you can't survive the later heroes. Yeah, when you get time...see if it's changed for you.



IMHO...keeping Findan in for the first two heroes saves you more time and effort now...but I'm always open to better strategies...I'm just putting out some alternative strategies to test...

[canerata7]

Okay, I managed to do it! (Beat the whole game on heroic! It is possible after all)



I don't know the exact changes they made with patch 1.2 but it is obvious that they made it harder. Purple attacks so frequently with powerful armies that even you leave Findan to defend, at some point you lose, having few resources to build (at least on herioc).



What worked for me was to leave a secondary hero to defend and building Mage Guild level 3 asap. After first battle your 2nd hero should gain few levels, choose Basic Summoning Magic and get Phantom forces. That's the weakest point in AI. He always target phantoms first. Do not phantom your archers or druids until you kill their liches. Just clone unicorns or blade dancers. Also arrange your units that your clones are away from your archers because liches will attack your archers to kill clones.



Another unproved trick is to move your battle dancers to the squre next to castle doors. This make AI attack them first, somehow. After you kill their liches start cloning archers.



Also I suspect how you arrange your units at the start of a battle effects turns. I have an order that helped me a lot or maybe I just lost my mind.
Edited on Wed, Aug 09 2006, 03:43 by canerata7

[maltz]

I am half way through this mission on heroic patch 1.2. They did tune up the difficulty a bit by making the attacking heroes slightly more capable (such as casting powerful spells). I lost 2 emerald dragons when Findan assault the castle, but was still able to take the 2nd Sylvan town on Day 7 Week 1. The invading purple heroes are very powerful, making me lose almost more than 70% of the defending unit every week. However, since I have more gold than resources, I am thinking of shipping the troops from the 2nd Sylvan town to help defend. On the other hand, Findan has just learned resurrection, so he rules the world now.



After I finish this mission, I will update the walkthrough.

[grumpy_dwarf]

Here is another way (granted on Normal). I didn't develop light magic so, but I did develop summoning magic. I took the first two towns and swung to the East. I then summoned everything that I had in the original town to defeat the first Garrison. I fed back mana to indan during the battle with the druids. After defeating the Garrison, I positioned Findan so Town Portal got me back to the original Town to defeat purple with Findan. I essentially did the samee thing for the second Garrison as well. From there on, the hero bought to guard the original town was strong enough to fend off attacks... Not sure how well I will do in the next missions on the alternate path.....

[Darrow]

I found this mission to be relatively easy at Hard difficulty on version 1.0 and very difficult at Heroic on version 1.2. The approach of this Walkthrough just didn't work for me. The level 1 hero left behind could barely survive the first assault and fell to the second one which came just a few days later. What DID work was to send the level 1 hero with 16 Emerald Dragons to the landing spot near the Hunters' Cabins (thus avoiding the swarm of Plague Zombies waiting at the boatyard near the second Sylvan town). He flagged all of the open mines on the way to the objective and easily overwhelmed the defenders. From there it was a matter of luring Orson and Zoltan to spots where Findan could ambush them to make safe the new acquisition. I kept Findan as the defender of the Capitol until the frequency of the Purple assaults slowed down to the point that Findan could leave long enough to knock out the garrisons and still return in time to defend the next wave of Purple. Once I freed Talanar from 57 Colossi and 28 Titans that guarded his prison he took all of the troops except the dragons and easily defended the Capitol while Findan and 21 Emerald Dragons rescued Dirael and mopped up the rest of the map. I got Resurrection, but not until late in the mission at the second Sylvan town.
Edited on Sat, Sep 02 2006, 22:55 by Darrow

[sisko]

There is some kind of exploit in this map. The first battle which you suppose to lose, i managed to kill all except some zombies. What i ened up doing was having mylast single 1 druid in the left back corner, and the enemies creatures didn't do anything. I already killed all the shooters. So with a lot of patience, and my always able to shoot hero, i killed his entire army. If it wasn't for the fact that the enemy suddenly started to realise he was losing after i killed the last non zombie, i could have won even. Needlesly to say, the next battle was quite easy and i didn't lose any creatures.

[wasdqwerty]

why did alaron turn into a tree?

[casdragon]

On heroic, I find the best strategy is to give Findan all the offensive troops (Dragons, Hunters, Sprites, Unicorns) and set out to take the 2nd Sylvan town. The more defensive troops (Treants, Druids) stay at the capitol with a level 1 hero - who will rise up in rank very quickly. It's tough for those necro armies to take out 20 ancient treants who have taken roots behind castle walls.



I would build up both mage guilds to level 5 to maximum the chance of getting resurrection. Also, word of light isn't that bad of a spell to have for the defending hero if they can learn it.

[Phate]

Does anyone else hate Findan's haikus?

[VodevilX]

**** i cant complete it with 1.41

[mshare17]

To win this scenario (1.41 patch), you need a certain number of some units in garrison in Syris Thalla. On the objective screen, click on the garrison objective and it will tell you that you need 50 elder druids, 30 silver unicorns, and 10 green dragons (emerald works).



I would like to thank all the contributors to the walkthrus, I never would have gotten this far without your help.