H4: Strategy, tactics and hints

[Metathron]

There is only one more which is bad, too: The fourth scenario, where you have to beat the chaos hero. He has a very mighty spell. I think, it's Desintegrate, i'm not sure. Even with good HP and Heavenly Shield he [b9nearly[/b] killed Lysander in one strike. But luckily Lysander survived, so the applied spells where kept active. A killed and restored hero has no spells active. So then in the second round Lysander kept more HP, and then each round more, where the enemy only lost HPs. So this was winnable. And i don't think that this army grows with difficulty that much as neutral armies.

That battle has proven difficult in the past precisely because of Disintegrate, but surprisingly enough, not this time on impossible. The hero never even cast this spell, though for most of the first half of the battle he didn't really get that much of a chance as I cast Sanctuary to position my heroes well in order to assassinate the hero first. Also, it might have helped that I caught the hero out on open field rather than having to deal with medusas on towers and whatnot.

1. For what purpose is the purple keymaster tent found behind the quest quard which lets only Lysander and Proetho together pass?

To force the player to play the scenario in a given order - first defeat the Venom Spawn, then release Proetho, then continue with other quests.

No. You can get access to that keymasters tent only with Proeto and Lysander together. But then, when you have visited that tent? For what is it good? I've never found any purple border guard. There is a blue border gurard which is essential. You only get the dwarfen hammer if you beat the orange player behind that border guard, but that border guard is blue. Where is the purple border guard? IÄve never found any.

I don't see what you are arguing here. It is exactly as pepak says. The quest/purple keymaster is set so to encourage the player to release Proetho first, so that you cannot finish the scenario without him. There is indeed a purple border guard to match, and it is the very last thing you'll tackle, i.e. it protects one of the two heroes you have to defeat. Also, you say the blue border guard is essential and then go on to say that you only get a dwarven hammer behind it?

BTW, is there a way to grab that Haven castle behind the blue border guard? I vagely remember that i once did it, but don't remember how.

You can't, because the blue keymaster is behind the border guard, so it's a one way street.

Lysander: Mainly Tactics branch plus Nobility branch, with a sidebranch of Combat and Life Magic.

I think putting nobility side by side with Tactics is a total waste here, not just on your hero, but in this particular campaign as well. It must be why you struggled to keep Lysander alive, because if you had chosen Tactics + Combat Lysander would have been a much stronger and more durable hero. Also, in two of the scenarios you play with no castles so the nobility skill is wasted. Furthermore, it seems to me that you have more than enough creatures available from all the towns anyway, and no especial need for extra cash/resources.

[Siegfried]

I don't see what you are arguing here. It is exactly as pepak says. The quest/purple keymaster is set so to encourage the player to release Proetho first, so that you cannot finish the scenario without him. There is indeed a purple border guard to match, and it is the very last thing you'll tackle, i.e. it protects one of the two heroes you have to defeat. Also, you say the blue border guard is essential and then go on to say that you only get a dwarven hammer behind it?

In the first scenario there are two different keymaster tents and only one border guard. A blue keymaster tent to the very north of the map. The corresponding blue border guard is near the first enemy town. Behind that border guard is a gold mine (hwich is not essential) and the orange player. A stack of a fiew black dragons is all he has. When you have beaten him you get the dwarfen hammer from the quest hut nearby. When you give that dwarfen hammer to another quest hut the final wall to the last red hero is bombed so you can access him. So indeed the dwarfen hammer is essential. Without getting it you won't be able to win the scenario.

Still there is the purple keymaster tent. And still the question is: Where is that purple border guard? I never found it.

Lysander: Mainly Tactics branch plus Nobility branch, with a sidebranch of Combat and Life Magic.

I think putting nobility side by side with Tactics is a total waste here, not just on your hero, but in this particular campaign as well. It must be why you struggled to keep Lysander alive, because if you had chosen Tactics + Combat Lysander would have been a much stronger and more durable hero. Also, in two of the scenarios you play with no castles so the nobility skill is wasted. Furthermore, it seems to me that you have more than enough creatures available from all the towns anyway, and no especial need for extra cash/resources.

This may be, indeed. And maybe with higher game difficulty it would be absolutely necessary to go for combat skill. Maybe the most useful combination would be combat + life magic, so he would be a paladin. Indeed most of the time, even on maps with castles, i go through the map with the band of 4 heroes solo. Nobility just fits better to the story

[pepak]

Well, i think, it would be possible to beat those stacks. But you need much potion of immortality and luck.

Not really. You just need a good tactics. For example, you can simply keep shooting them while Proetho keeps them neutralized with a Song of Peace.

The effreeti attack and kill Lysander. Lysander is restored by potion. The nightmares cast terror on one of the spellcasters. The medusas then kill Lysander again.

Actually, the Efreeti won't even reach Lysander on turn 1 if you position him correctly. Nightmares won't cast Terror on Proetho because Proetho has GM Resistance, and even if he doesn't, he is hidden behind the Efreeti so the Nightmares don't have a line-of-sight on him. Medusas don't kill Lysander because with GM Combat and GM Resistance, the number of Medusae is not large enough to turn him into stone and the damage inflicted won't be nearly enough.

I regularly beat the stack even on Champion difficulty and without problems (or using unfair tactics such as restarting until PoI pops up or reloading until I get that "necessary" morale or luck), so apparently it is not dependent on luck. (In fact, I completed the whole campaign on Champion difficulty without loading once!)

But the effreeti and the nightmares are faster.

Correct me if I am wrong, but 1) neither can reach you in one turn unless your formation is incorrect, and 2) there is enough of Emeralds of Speed in the first scenario that all your heroes should be sufficiently faster than any creatures except the fastest (most of which don't appear in the campaign in any case).

Exorcism is no option since if i get the chance to cast a spell as long as Proeto and Lysander are both alive i'd cast Guardian Angel. If i do not cast it, the game is over then.

Try different spells in your spellbook. Chaos Ward would probably help you more than a Guardian Angel, as would e.g. Sanctuary. And you could look into the possibility of getting Nature or Order spells in the first scenario, too - Mass Slow would make your life much easier, as would Teleport. I am not even talking about Berserk or Hypnotize...

The problem apparently is that you selected absolutelly unsuitable set of skills in the first scenario and made it worse by casting wrong spells for the situation and using incorrect formations. My suggestion would be to forgget those nice-sounding-but-in-fact-worthless skills such as Tactics and Nobility and focus instead on Combat skills. Get some Life magic, but train one hero in either Nature (Water Elemental!) or Order (Teleport, Mass Slow, Berserk) magic. You could also give Stealth to one hero and simply steal the Sword of the Gods without bothering to fight. There are MANY ways to beat the second scenario, none of which are dependent on luck.

The fourth scenario, where you have to beat the chaos hero. He has a very mighty spell. I think, it's Desintegrate, i'm not sure. Even with good HP and Heavenly Shield he [b9nearly[/b] killed Lysander in one strike.

The merits of Resistance once again...

And i don't think that this army grows with difficulty that much as neutral armies.

Indeed. Only the neutral armies grow, unless the mapmaker decided to give the AI player a boost.

No. You can get access to that keymasters tent only with Proeto and Lysander together. But then, when you have visited that tent? For what is it good? I've never found any purple border guard. There is a blue border gurard which is essential. You only get the dwarfen hammer if you beat the orange player behind that border guard, but that border guard is blue. Where is the purple border guard? I've never found any.

It's been a long time since I played the campaign, so I may be wrong. But I think the last enemy hero, the one you can't access until the dwarf destroys the wall, is protected by the Purple gate.

Allowed is 18. In the second i got them to level 20, limit is at 25. So i get more and more behind the possibilities.

You should really focus on the most important heroes and give all available experience to them. You can upgrade the lower heroes later. If you want to bother. I don't anymore.

You keep those other until the last scenario and within that last scenario until the very last fight. So they are not just for the ride. And besides Lysander you loose the game too if Proeto is killed. And in scenario 3 you get Desette, which you don't have to loose either. And in the 5th scenario you have Sir Kentaine as well. I think you should not loose him either. So you need them all. The only theoretically expendable are the two additional heros of your choice from the first scenario, but why throw away when you urgently need them?

You can keep the heroes, but you don't have to and most certainly you don't have to fight with them - you just need to keep them alive. If you level up Lysander and one additional hero wisely, they will be able to win every single combat in this campaign on their own. That's what I mean by saying that those extra heroes are there "just for the ride" - they don't actually need to do anything, just be there.

Why? I never lost one. And in map 4, you do not have 4, but 5 heroes (Lysander, Proeto, Your additionally choosen 2, plus Desette).

Because they will be replaced by the other carrover heroes.

These where my choices:

Lysander: Mainly Tactics branch plus Nobility branch, with a sidebranch of Combat and Life Magic.

Hero1: Mainly Combat branch plus Nobility Branch, with sidebranches in Life Magic and Scouting

Hero2: Cleric. Mainly Life Magic and Nobility, with Order Magic and Nature Magic as sidebranches (One from the beastmaster hut, the other from the seminaries of the conquered towns), good chance to make him Archmage.

Proeto: Mainly Life Magic and Combat, with sidebrahcnes in Nobility, Order and Nature Magic, again good chance for Archmage.

If you want to win the game easily and on any difficulty, consider:
Lysander - full Combat, with some skills in Life (for Heavenly Shield and similar boosters)
Proetho - keep him as he is, his skill selection is quite poor and hardly worth the upgrade
Hero 1 - Order, with some Combat (esp. Combat+Resistance)
Hero 2 - anything you like

Heavenly shield helps to survive the first round and gives some extra time

So you spend one round casting Heavenly Shield just to survive one round longer? Seems like some other spell would be more beneficial.

[Gaidal Cain]

Nightmares won't cast Terror on Proetho because Proetho has GM Resistance, and even if he doesn't, he is hidden behind the Efreeti so the Nightmares don't have a line-of-sight on him.

Huh? Where do you get efreeti from? (You could block line of sight with a few of the recruitable creatures on the map though).

[pepak]

Nightmares won't cast Terror on Proetho because Proetho has GM Resistance, and even if he doesn't, he is hidden behind the Efreeti so the Nightmares don't have a line-of-sight on him.

Huh? Where do you get efreeti from? (You could block line of sight with a few of the recruitable creatures on the map though).

I meant Lysander

[Metathron]

In the first scenario there are two different keymaster tents and only one border guard. A blue keymaster tent to the very north of the map. The corresponding blue border guard is near the first enemy town. Behind that border guard is a gold mine (hwich is not essential) and the orange player. A stack of a fiew black dragons is all he has. When you have beaten him you get the dwarfen hammer from the quest hut nearby. When you give that dwarfen hammer to another quest hut the final wall to the last red hero is bombed so you can access him. So indeed the dwarfen hammer is essential. Without getting it you won't be able to win the scenario.

It's been awhile since I played the first scenario - I only continued with the second one a few days ago - so I forgot about the hammer and the wall. After blowing up the wall, you have to pass through the purple board guard, is the crux of the matter; I guess you just overlooked it or forgot about it.

This may be, indeed. And maybe with higher game difficulty it would be absolutely necessary to go for combat skill. Maybe the most useful combination would be combat + life magic, so he would be a paladin. Indeed most of the time, even on maps with castles, i go through the map with the band of 4 heroes solo. Nobility just fits better to the story smile

Sure, that's fine with me. I don't always like picking the combat skill with my heroes otherwise, and it is especially unnecessary on the lower difficulty levels.

My suggestion would be to forgget those nice-sounding-but-in-fact-worthless skills such as Tactics and Nobility and focus instead on Combat skills.

I disagree completely that tactics is a worthless skill. The importance of combat certainly increases with the higher difficulty levels, but it's not overwhelmingly important. For example, in most of the scenarios in Lysander's campaign, champions and/or crusaders bore the brunt of the attack, and I didn't have that many either, e.g. 4-7 champions, or 7-14 crusaders. But their stats were hugely increased by grandmaster tactics, offense, defense and leadership (from Lysander), and with a few spells cast on them like Bless, X ward, and especially Guardian Angel (and Resurrection if hostile attacks manage to penetrate GA) these troops were rendered nearly invincible against the majority of enemy stacks. So these troops led most offensives, the heroes staying in the background casting spells or shooting. Of course, I made sure they had a decent amount of combat to prevent them from dying too easily (though Divine Intervention made things much more simple), but that does not diminish the value of tactics.

[Siegfried]

Actually, the Efreeti won't even reach Lysander on turn 1 if you position him correctly. Nightmares won't cast Terror on Proetho because Proetho has GM Resistance, and even if he doesn't, he is hidden behind the Efreeti so the Nightmares don't have a line-of-sight on him. Medusas don't kill Lysander because with GM Combat and GM Resistance, the number of Medusae is not large enough to turn him into stone and the damage inflicted won't be nearly enough.

Hmmm, so then i did not have Lysander positioned correctly. The Efreeti indeed reached him in first round. So that means i've to use a "dummy" stack at that position.

I regularly beat the stack even on Champion difficulty and without problems (or using unfair tactics such as restarting until PoI pops up or reloading until I get that "necessary" morale or luck), so apparently it is not dependent on luck. (In fact, I completed the whole campaign on Champion difficulty without loading once!)

I have no problem on default difficlty and one more, but with the highest two levels i have serious problems. In the semi-highest i sometimes get through, sometimes not, in the highest difficulty level never. Although of course it would be possible to wait some time to accumulate enough moncs and crusaders, but that would take really long.

But the effreeti and the nightmares are faster.

Correct me if I am wrong, but 1) neither can reach you in one turn unless your formation is incorrect, and 2) there is enough of Emeralds of Speed in the first scenario that all your heroes should be sufficiently faster than any creatures except the fastest (most of which don't appear in the campaign in any case).

well, at least the Efreeti where faster. Maybe Lysander was in the wrong position, but they killed Lysander rightaway.

Try different spells in your spellbook. Chaos Ward would probably help you more than a Guardian Angel, as would e.g. Sanctuary. And you could look into the possibility of getting Nature or Order spells in the first scenario, too - Mass Slow would make your life much easier, as would Teleport. I am not even talking about Berserk or Hypnotize...

I did not get them to cast level 5 spells. Mass slow and teleport would indeed make life easier. But mass slow only if it is cast first, before the Efreeti move. The crucial point is to survive that first attack of the Efreeti. Indeed with another position and a dummy stack at that position might help.

The problem apparently is that you selected absolutelly unsuitable set of skills in the first scenario and made it worse by casting wrong spells for the situation and using incorrect formations. My suggestion would be to forgget those nice-sounding-but-in-fact-worthless skills such as Tactics and Nobility and focus instead on Combat skills. Get some Life magic, but train one hero in either Nature (Water Elemental!) or Order (Teleport, Mass Slow, Berserk) magic. You could also give Stealth to one hero and simply steal the Sword of the Gods without bothering to fight. There are MANY ways to beat the second scenario, none of which are dependent on luck.

I don't think the spells were wrong, but the position may have been wrong. And maybe it is inevitable to train Proeto and Lysander to the maximum level by not levelling the other two, so the two main heroes would survive that first attack. The other two then may be resrurrected at the sanctuary.

It's been a long time since I played the campaign, so I may be wrong. But I think the last enemy hero, the one you can't access until the dwarf destroys the wall, is protected by the Purple gate.

Ah, something comes to mind. Indeed there is a gate behind the (bombed) wall. I don't remember the color, i never took a second look at it, but you may be right, it could be the missing purple border guard.

You can keep the heroes, but you don't have to and most certainly you don't have to fight with them - you just need to keep them alive. If you level up Lysander and one additional hero wisely, they will be able to win every single combat in this campaign on their own. That's what I mean by saying that those extra heroes are there "just for the ride" - they don't actually need to do anything, just be there.

Hmmm, maybe i'll try that, just to see if it works.

Why? I never lost one. And in map 4, you do not have 4, but 5 heroes (Lysander, Proeto, Your additionally choosen 2, plus Desette).

Because they will be replaced by the other carrover heroes.

I did not understand this. What does that mean? Special loose condition says you loose if Lysander, Proeto or Desette are killed. Not sure about the last scenario.

If you want to win the game easily and on any difficulty, consider:
Lysander - full Combat, with some skills in Life (for Heavenly Shield and similar boosters)
Proetho - keep him as he is, his skill selection is quite poor and hardly worth the upgrade
Hero 1 - Order, with some Combat (esp. Combat+Resistance)
Hero 2 - anything you like

I'll try something like this. About Proeto: As far as i know he origially only has life magic.

So you spend one round casting Heavenly Shield just to survive one round longer? Seems like some other spell would be more beneficial.

No, not to survive one round longer, but to survive the first strike. Any spell that does not help survive the first round is useless. So at least for the normal difficulty levels Heavenly Shield is the spell to cast, since this way Lysander survives the first round. My be different if Lysander had another position and GM Combat. Indeed changing the position is the easiest part. Maybe i try my skill selection with levelling focus on Lysander and Proeto just with different positions to see if that would be enough resp. how far i can get with that.

But in the end i see this only as a general training. It is no fun playing that campaign in higher difficulty levels since the AI then is not able to do anything useful. It just sits there and gets beaten by neutral stacks. But for training gameplay trying this would be good.

Nevertheless, thanks for the hints.

[pepak]

I have no problem on default difficlty and one more, but with the highest two levels i have serious problems. In the semi-highest i sometimes get through, sometimes not, in the highest difficulty level never. Although of course it would be possible to wait some time to accumulate enough moncs and crusaders, but that would take really long.

That wouldn't help because the neutral stacks grow faster (10% each week, I believe) than the creatures for hire.

Mass slow and teleport would indeed make life easier. But mass slow only if it is cast first, before the Efreeti move. The crucial point is to survive that first attack of the Efreeti. Indeed with another position and a dummy stack at that position might help.

Better distribution of those Emeralds of Speed as well - Efreeti only have initiative 6, same as your heroes. If you give one Emerald to your spellcaster, he will act sooner than the Efreeti.

But in the end i see this only as a general training. It is no fun playing that campaign in higher difficulty levels since the AI then is not able to do anything useful. It just sits there and gets beaten by neutral stacks. But for training gameplay trying this would be good.

Well, I quite like trying to beat a strong enemy army with little or no resources, so that's fun in itself for me.

But knowing these tactics well will help you tremendusly in fan-made maps which push the boundaries of Heroes far out. In the 3DO-supplied maps you won't find much except the excellent storylines in the standard (non-expansion) campaigns - most of the fun with Heroes 4 comes from user-made maps. Those can be VERY challenging, with the AI VERY aggressive, and they tend to scale well to the difficulty you choose.

If you want to train your combat tactics, I strongly recommend downloading and playing Psychobabble's "My Brother's Keeper" map. It's somewhat similar to the second scenario of Lysander's campaign (in that you go with a lone hero and none or few creatures), but all fights are very carefully balanced to make them always winnable - if you use the right tactics (which is explained before each combat, if you want it).

[Siegfried]

Better distribution of those Emeralds of Speed as well - Efreeti only have initiative 6, same as your heroes. If you give one Emerald to your spellcaster, he will act sooner than the Efreeti.

That's interesting: I gave all speed emeralds (in fact, nearly all emeralds) to Lysander. Only the spellpoint uppers (opal ...) i distributed among the 2 magic heroes. But still the Efreeti acted first. Very strange.

If you want to train your combat tactics, I strongly recommend downloading and playing Psychobabble's "My Brother's Keeper" map. It's somewhat similar to the second scenario of Lysander's campaign (in that you go with a lone hero and none or few creatures), but all fights are very carefully balanced to make them always winnable - if you use the right tactics (which is explained before each combat, if you want it).

I'll try that, but not now. First i have to get through the standard campaigns. I made the life, nature and order campaigns several times, but never got the others to an end. For order i already found a way how to play that. For nature i'm still not really sure. For the other factions i still have no real idea.

[Humakt]

Sorry to say so, but this post are two (out of some more points) that perfectly illustrate some dumb points about the game. Any (sound) advice (from someone who should know) that starts with "Keep restarting the scenario until..." is extremely indicative.
Moreover, levelling up Combat, Melee and Magic Resistance first at the exclusion of any other skill may be a prayer of M&M, but only of version 4. If there is a way that has to be followed (at the exclusion of others), that's indicative as well - there shouldn't be.

I don't remember this campaign scenario (completed Lysander campaign soon after I got the game, and never after again), but what I can recall is that I didn't definitely need to resort to restart "tactics", which by the way are available to any heroes game (bad stack guarding that gold mine? restart scenario).

Besides, while the above mantra of combat may be true in this particular map, it is in no way a universal rule for the game. Some maps (well, user-made at least) bolster huge armies, and there army with good tactics hero will eat combat heroes (with army and/or infinite PoI) alive easily.

[Siegfried]

With the default difficulty or one level more there is indeed no restart necessary in the whole campaign.

You're right that the interesting part is to have several choices how to win the campaign, like several different development paths for your heroes. What pacobac suggests is taking these to the extreme to see what strategy and tactics still will let you win the game. And indeed it may be that on extreme difficulty there is only and exactly one way to get through. Again i see that only as a training, not as fun playing campaign. What i like most on these original campaigns is the story, nothing else. Maybe for training other, user-made maps are better.

[Metathron]

Taken from Quirqurish Dragon's thread, so as not to distract him:

@ BT: I am playing the campaigns, which don't have selectable difficulty, so I am playing on whatever the default is

They do have selectable dif, it's just that only at the campaigns start (which annoyed the heck out of me in the Chaos campaign, as i couldn't finish the first map on anything else but Easy, and then the rest where too easy).

I actually had an easier time on Impossible difficulty with the Chaos campaign. But we've not gotten there yet, so I'll refrain from further comment.

You did? However did you conquer the first town? My sad little array of pirates and rogues, as well as two weakling heroes, was quickly trodden down into the dirt by a strong defense of minotaurs, orcs and rogues.

I remember completing the campaign at least two times way back when, but I'm not sure about what difficulty I was playing on. A few months ago, I tried it again, on hard, and while I had no problems capturing my first time, the barbarian player was just too strong for me, even though I had a couple of blackies in my army.

I pretty much agree with what TT is saying. The first map of some campaigns, like the Order and Life campaigns, give you ample opportunities to develop and strengthen your hero for the coming battles, even on impossible difficulty. Others, like Might, Nature and Chaos, where you start without a castle and a meagre following, really do seem impossible ON impossible because the neutral stacks are just too big. So you have little choice but to choose a lower difficulty setting for these campaigns in order to plod through the beginning stages of hero development, but then all the later scenarios prove to be a cakewalk.

[pepak]

You did? However did you conquer the first town? My sad little array of pirates and rogues, as well as two weakling heroes, was quickly trodden down into the dirt by a strong defense of minotaurs, orcs and rogues.

That's quite easy! Just skip the neutral town and go directly for the opponent's Barbarian town, which is much less guarded. Buy some Cyclopes and return for the neutral town.

Others, like Might, Nature and Chaos, where you start without a castle and a meagre following, really do seem impossible ON impossible because the neutral stacks are just too big.

I finished all H4 (including all expansion) campaigns on Champion. Some of them (e.g. Waerjak and Alita) were damn hard at the beginning, but all were doable. In fact, I think that with the current understanding of H4, all would be reasonably simple (including Waerjak's campaign, which gave me nightmares back then).

So you have little choice but to choose a lower difficulty setting for these campaigns in order to plod through the beginning stages of hero development, but then all the later scenarios prove to be a cakewalk.

It's not much different on Champion difficulty, either. If you want challenge, you must use fan-made maps. A Wind of Thorns, perhaps.

[Meandor]

When playing Chaos on impossible you really have to know what you are doing. Few days in wrong direction and you`ll get serious pain in the ass. All in all first map was "Ok" but i hated the one where you had to kill a guy which was rival of your "father". When i arrived he had many, many black dragons so i had to wait for some time before i could defeat him.

[Bandobras Took]

You did? However did you conquer the first town? My sad little array of pirates and rogues, as well as two weakling heroes, was quickly trodden down into the dirt by a strong defense of minotaurs, orcs and rogues.

That's quite easy! Just skip the neutral town and go directly for the opponent's Barbarian town, which is much less guarded. Buy some Cyclopes and return for the neutral town.

I believe that's how I did it; yes. It's been a while. But the AI can't develop at all if it can't beat those creature stacks guarding everything, while you can sneak around them. Pete Girly can get to GM Stealth on the first map if you play your cards right.

Others, like Might, Nature and Chaos, where you start without a castle and a meagre following, really do seem impossible ON impossible because the neutral stacks are just too big.

The Chaos campaign is different because of your direct access to Stealth, which means the large neutral stacks are going to hurt your opponent far more than they ever hurt you.

The Nature campaign is also different on the first level in that you don't have to defeat the enemy -- you just need to reach a certain point on the map. I'd say that the Death campaign's first map would end up harder on Impossible than the Nature campaign.

But yeah, the Might Campaign's first map would likely give me screaming nightmares on impossible.

[Metathron]

Good idea about skipping the Chaos town and heading straight for the barbarian town. I guess I hadn't thought of doing that because I expected that town to be too strong for my starting army.

And that first Might scenario IS a veritable nightmare - the already strong army of the AI coupled with the huge stacks on impossible plus the fact that you have no town to begin with (and no access to lvl 3 troops in the first town - gee thanks!) and only few troops...Ouch, I think I'll skip that one. Pepak, we'll have to bribe you into writing a walkthrough sometime.

[pepak]

Good idea about skipping the Chaos town and heading straight for the barbarian town. I guess I hadn't thought of doing that because I expected that town to be too strong for my starting army.

The same trick applies to the Winds of War Barbarian campaign.

(and no access to lvl 3 troops in the first town - gee thanks!) and only few troops...Ouch, I think I'll skip that one. Pepak, we'll have to bribe you into writing a walkthrough sometime. :-D

The problem is getting the first town, after that it's a piece of cake.

My suggestions about beating the scenario are already somewhere in the forum archives. If there are forum archives from before the move, that is.

[Siegfried]

Hi,

i'm currently working on a new campaign. The players hero is death aligned. The first scenario is only some kind of story introduction, and for the whole campaign the focus is on the story, not mainly on strategy or tactics. Nevertheless i'd like to add at least some challenge. So i'd like to get some feedback on thoughts about balancing.

In the first scenario the player has no town, a lone hero without troops, but immediate access to a zombie dwelling and a skeleton dwelling. Furthermore he gets a purse which gives him a small amount of gold. After some few days he either gets access to another skeleton dwelling or to an imp dwelling. If you try to get both, you'll be in trouble.

The enemy has two towns. One is reachable at the end of the first week or beginning of the second week. There is a hero around. You have to take that town to get access to the upper level. So i think the balancing issues are around these two towns. I currently have the town mostly default. Tavern is disabled, though, as well as lvl 3 and 4 dwellings. So it gets starting troops, it has a fort built, and it has one lvl 1 dwelling built. The campaign is intended for normal (intermediate) difficulty. I tried it and got the town, but it was quite hard. But i'm by far not a very good player. I'd like to adapt that town to chosen difficulty by script. How would you do that? It's not only about how to script that, but also what to pre-build to adapt to the difficulty level. I think in the easiest level it should not have any building built, maybe except the fort. BTW, the only resource source it a cart of wood and a cart of ore, there's nothing more.

Ah, i forgot: The players hero gets access to a wand of illusions. Without it seems to be impossible to capture the first town.

[Metathron]

I think you'd be better off asking that question in the Mapmaking Guild.

[Humakt]

Hi,
The enemy has two towns. One is reachable at the end of the first week or beginning of the second week. There is a hero around. You have to take that town to get access to the upper level. So i think the balancing issues are around these two towns. I currently have the town mostly default. Tavern is disabled, though, as well as lvl 3 and 4 dwellings. So it gets starting troops, it has a fort built, and it has one lvl 1 dwelling built. The campaign is intended for normal (intermediate) difficulty. I tried it and got the town, but it was quite hard. But i'm by far not a very good player. I'd like to adapt that town to chosen difficulty by script. How would you do that? It's not only about how to script that, but also what to pre-build to adapt to the difficulty level. I think in the easiest level it should not have any building built, maybe except the fort. BTW, the only resource source it a cart of wood and a cart of ore, there's nothing more.

Ah, i forgot: The players hero gets access to a wand of illusions. Without it seems to be impossible to capture the first town.

Well, the script required is moderately easy. You just need to check in timed event the difficulty player has chosen. You can check it by the amount of gold he has (Champion for example gives 0 gold to player). When you've determined difficulty you can call up a triggerable event in town that constructs appropriate buildings.