Tribes of the East ￾→ Flying to the Rescue ￾→ A

[arturchix]

Speaking about skills worth to invest, I'm giving my heroes triple ballista + fire arrows whenever I can - with luck just ballista can take out hordes.

The memory mentor is a bit unbalanced (with unlimited cash the player can basically overwrite all skills and choose whatever skills he wants) but I like it.

BTW, there seems to be an exploit learning and forgetting skills that give additional points for one of the attributes.

[akaihane]

If you are going to cheat with plan B , why don't you just load the console and give yourself 1000 black dragons or whatever?

If you don't like a challenge , either play on easy or just cheat your way through , no need for plan B which is cheating as well.

If you are going to play on heroic , play like a hero(hence heroic) without cheating.

All the fights are possible without any cheats on heroic , you just need to do some thinking and having the right build.

[jptravels4fun]

What do I have to do to go back and get Wulfstan puppet master and/or mass confusion in the last scenario? I have the game saved from C3M3. Every time I go back and then replay Wulfstan does not have it and I lose the battle.

[stachnie]

I have finished whole campaign on Hard. About minibosses fights: Wulfstan's one was easy (he had full Dwarven set and was loaded with the other good arties like Staff of Netherworld), Freyda's and Ylaya's not very difficult (it was a very good idea to block castle gate) and Kujinn's seemed to be difficult but ended short after her army managed to steamroll inside the caslle.



However, I had to repeat the final battle two times. The keys to win were:



- equip at least two Sar Issus arties (it allowed Zehir to outcast Biara)

- start the battle with Mass Confusion

- make a defensive formation around Archangels and shooters (Shadow Matriarchs and Battle Mages)

- not to use the Catapult at all to preserve the walls

- blind enemy Nightmares at the castle gate (Frenzy was not allowed because of the Shield of Dwarven Kings)

- PM Archidaemons to get rid of Archidevils and creatures gated outside the castle

- Magic Immunity on most own PM'ed creatures

- AA's resurrected Cyclops -> Vampirism, Teleport, eat remains of enemy army.



@ jptravels4fun: perhaps you have already finished the campaign but other people may have this problem as well. Just four things: Mage Guilds in 3 towns for Confusion (it may not appear though), Mage Vaults for higher level Dark spells, Enlightenment-Scholar and a lot of cash for Memory Mentor. This way Zehir may teach Wulfstan almost all Dark spells (in my case he lacked only Suffering).
Edited on Thu, May 29 2008, 07:44 by stachnie

[koffil]

biara need Logistics for her ultimate+teleport assault+swift gating.

[Banedon]

I want to thank you maltz, without your walkthroughs this mission would have been pretty impossible. With them, and the preparatory work I did, I won all the mini bossfights with minimal difficulty and the final battle with Biara as well (on Heroic, too).



Things to note about the boss fights -



Wulfstan - his army is much bigger than the opponent's, so no excuse for losing.



Freyda - Magical Immunity away the Puppet Master, then simply blow everything up. Kill those units left alive with Last Man Standing; it fuels Divine Vengeance on important targets while incurring no retaliation damage. Remember to deploy the Squires and Conscripts near the Gate - their main purpose is retaliation-stealing, and they need to be near the fight to steal the retaliation. This fight was easy enough I did it on my first try, and had quite a lot to spare, too (the Griffin stack stayed alive, the Inquisitor stack stayed alive, and if they both died I still had Guardian Angel [the skill]). That said, my Freyda was level 28 (yes level 28 - Expert Enlightenment on the earlier map helped a lot).



Kujin - This is the hardest fight. Surprisingly enough, every single one of the stacks are valuable. The Chieftain stack should whip the Untamed Cyclops to act as often as possible. The Earth Daughter stack need not cast too many spells; the damage output they inflict is too important to give up. The Bloodeyed Cyclops and Untamed Cyclops stacks are obviously vital to killing the Inferno army - try hard to use their AoE attacks to fullest extent. The Foul Wyverns are the main retaliation stealer, and also bait: they lure the enemy out so the rest of the army can gang on it. The Centaurs are needed to thin the Succubi Seducer stack ASAP, and finally the Goblins have their very own special duty: counterspell the enemy hero. With more than 2000 Goblins, I found my enemy actually resorting to physical attacks instead of attempting to cast. Finally there is Kujin herself. Early in the fight Horde's Anger does huge damage - more than 3000. Use it quickly and early to kill the Succubi Seducers; with sufficient damage they cannot Seduce the Cyclops stack and are thus a lot less dangerous (in my game they took the Centaur stack - oh well, but probably the least important of the stacks by then). The most dangerous of the enemy stacks is probably the 1.6k Hell Hounds; kill them if possible with AoE attacks without incurring their retaliation, do not let them get an unobstructed hit on the Earth Daughters and Cyclopses - use Fear My Roar to force them away if necessary. My battle ended with the Chieftains whipping the Untamed Cyclopses to kill the most dangerous stacks with the retaliation absorbed.



Ylaya - her army is much larger than the opponent's, no excuse for losing (that's even if the enemy doesn't come out). Main weapon for her is Empowered Deep Freeze. Cast and shoot the Succubi (and poison them, too).



Biara - I actually found this battle quite difficult. My Zehir had Enligtenment, Light Magic, Summoning Magic and Destructive Magic - none of them effective enough on a battle of this scale. With Biara's stats so much stronger than Zehir's, I don't think I could've won this without Puppet Master. I retrained Zehir to Arcane Omniscience, but even with Puppet Master the fight was a challenge (I had only the 4 level 7's, 20 Storm Titans and 49 Battle Mages, having been quite careless early). Biara's stats are so superior that there's no safe way Zehir can charge her even with mass blessings and mass curses. In the end though it's just Zehir casting Puppet Master, defending with every creature and watching the carnage.



I wonder what happened to Arantir?
Edited on Fri, Jun 27 2008, 00:40 by Banedon

[mmontgomery]

I appreciated the tip on stopping Kujin to give her the 900 Cyclops. This turned a perhaps impossibly challenging battle (on heroic) to a trivial battle. All of the rest of the battles were also pretty easy on heroic, even the final battle with Biara.



I kept Zehir with Expert Logistics (pathfinding, etc.) and Expert Luck (resourcefulness, spoils of war, etc.) through the entire level, travelling with just a stack of Storm Titans that I eventually got to 32. (In retrospect, I should have used Call to Arms every week, since I reached level 33, with plenty of experience to spare, but not nearly enough to even think about level 34.) I started this mission at level 30. Since it was actually easier/faster to win zero casualty battles with Zehir having nothing but the Storm Titans, I gave the rest of the army to a secondary hero which I left at the second dwarven warren. As soon as Zehir reached level 31, I took the dwarven warren with the secondary hero, popping Zehir immediately to level 32. The rest of the experience from the level got him to 33.



For the final battle, in addition to arcane omniscience, I retrained Zehir with Expert Light Magic (Master of Wrath, Blessings, Abjuration), and Expert Dark Magic (Master of Mind, Shrug Darkness, Seal of Darkness).

I outfitted Zehir with the complete Dwarven Set, Ring and Staff of Star-Issus (mostly for the casting speed enhancement), Lion Cape and necklace, ring of celerity, and a Golden Horseshoe. I considered whether to use the Lion Crown or the Dwarven Helm, but decided I liked starting the battle with expert mass endurance and expert mass deflect missile, so I chose the Dwarven Helm. The other two lion pieces were enough to for each stack to have at least 0 morale.



In addition to the level 7 stacks, I had a stack of 84 Rakshasa Raja and 39 Storm Titans, both with +56% initiative/+15 attack/+15 defense, and 545 Magnetic Golems with +56% initiative/+15 defense/+12 health. The 417 Air Elementals was tempting, but they could not be equipped with a creature artifact. After artifacts, the Golems had 2 more hit points, and 13 more defense, and I felt that was more important that the faster speed and no-retaliation strike.



My first catapult strike took out both side towers, and my Cyclops knocked the gate down. Zehir cast mass confusion followed by mass slow, then spent most of the rest of the time dispelling puppet master with either vampirism or magic immunity. The vampirism is especially effective with the large stacks.



The battle was a massacre. When the smoke cleared, I had lost only 71 total level 7 creatures. After all of the hype, I was expecting a much tougher battle on Heroic.

[Queen Hera]

I had no chance with the Wulfstan battle. I changed his skills in the last mission (I didn't think he'd need Light Magic). The Succubus Seducers seduce the Thunder Thanes, then use Puppet Master so the Thunder Thanes just pulverise his army. Oh well, back to the previous mission. Thanks Maltz for the walkthrough - I should have read it earlier.

[Queen Hera]

Phew!!! Thankyou Maltz. There is NO way I could have finished the final campaign without your help. My hardest battle (after changing Wulfstan's skills & winning that fight) was the Kujin fight(Heroic). After numerous attempts failed, I decided to go for Plan B normal. Thanks also to the other questors that offered suggestions.

[DanTanna]

I'm stuck on the Kujin battle. I don't even remember building her up or playing her character. How can I get Gotai to fight instead of her? She just charges the castle and I can't stop her. Even the cheat codes don't work She get wasted by constant Frenzy and PM. I have no retaliation to that. Do I need a high speed repeating mouse to stop her? Or did the new patch fix the deal? I really don't want to go all the way back. I'll just play randomly generated maps if that is the case.

[VMmage]

Yes, patch 3.1 fixed our little "cheat" to avoid the mini-boss fights, as documented in the README:



"- fixed interface actions not blocked properly on enemy turns and while playing scripted scenes"



So, you can uninstall/reinstall the game to go back to patch level 3.0 so that you can stop Kujin, or rebuild her so that you can win without the "cheat", or give up on the campaign. I'd recommend going back to patch level 3.0, it's *so* much fun to show up at Talonguard with 900 Cyclops.
Edited on Tue, Sep 30 2008, 23:02 by VMmage

[zordrac]

How to win the Kuyjin (Orc) fight versus the demons on Patch 3.1 (without uninstalling the patch):



First off, place your Cyclops stacks either side of the Goblins. Don't worry about putting the Earth Daughters next to them, as you won't need to restore mana. Once the battle starts, ATTACK! Fly in your Foul Wyverns on a suicide run to attack the 3-headed Cerebreus stacks. They will be poisoned now and you will have wiped out 100 or so of them. A set of Hellhounds will all but destroy your Foul Wyverns, you will kill another 100 hellhounds, poisoning them too, and then a third stack will kill your Foul Wyverns. All of your units, meanwhile, will be on 2nd level blood rage thanks to your own units being wiped out.



Now, use Fury of the Horde to attack the Succubus Seducers. It is better than any rage bonuses, as you get as much bonus from this as you would from a rage bonus, plus it hurts them and encourages the enemy to attack you (and not to gate).



Your first 2 goblin throws (with the Cyclops stacks) should wipe out their uber powerful ballista and uber powerful first aid tent. If you don't do that, then they will hurt you and you will also lose your catapault.



Now, as they start coming to you, pick them off with goblin throws before finally killing them when they are close enough. Wipe out one whole stack before starting on the next one.



Once they kill your goblins, stop using Fury of the Horde and instead focus on rage bonuses. Once you are left with just the Earth Daughters (who long term are your best troop), use the individual rage bonuses to make them huge.



You will be left with about 300 Earth Daughters at level 3 rage versus 1,200 Hellhounds (you kill the Cerebreus first), some jumping demons and 120 or so Succubus Seducers. The Earth Daughters have incredible initiative though and will absorb most everything with level 3 blood rage plus thousands of rage points. Wipe out the Hellhounds first then the jumping demons then the Seducers. You should still have 100 or so left at the end.



It is a close fight, but doable. I did this with a level 19 Kuyjin without Shatter Dark Magic, so you could do better.
Edited on Fri, Oct 10 2008, 23:34 by zordrac

[wzbbb]

Just finished. Only Kujin's fight was tough on 3.1, went for the rage ultimate instead of shatter dark. Won on the 3rd try, sort of cheated by choosing not to destroy the castle walls, which made the ai hero delay his onslaught of frenzies (my spell power was high enough that puppet master lasts less than a turn) until his troops were out and engaged with mine. Managed to make use of smart troop placement so that frenzied units hit their troops more often than not. Ended up with 200 earth daughters at 4k rage points fighting 400 firehounds and 300 succubis. Managed to cut them down eventually as I took almost no damage due to rage points.



I'm quite displeased with the ending though, kinda miss Arantir and Raelag, was expecting to see them in the final movie sequence at least

[Culian]

900 cyclops was worth crashing the game ... somehow once I have the 900, I wished Biara had like 2K hounds, 1K succubus, maybe 300 demons ... you know, prolong the thrill of having 900 ass whopping cyclops on vampirism! it ended too soon with 900 ... sigh

[Negativland]

Anyone know any strategy to survive with Kujin in3.1? I tried all kinds of approaches, but no chance. And I can't trigger the fight with Gotai. And if Kujin loses, I get the mission failed thing. The dwarf and the human fights were so easy, I was shocked to see this monstrosity :O I try to concentrate on initial stacks and not waste any turns on the gated ones, but they slaughter me! I mean there's around 4 stacks summing around 2k of cerberi, plus, most of the times the succubi seduce my earth daughters. Anyone know if building Kujin differently helps? though I hate to replay those orc missions, they were so long...

[Negativland]

nevermind, I've managed to do it Defensive approach was the key, though I didn't quite think of that (barbarians, wtf). Wait on your position, place goblins between cyclops stacks and shoot as much as you can first. The infernals gated inside castle walls when I didn't rush in, the first turn the daughters slowed succubi so Kujin could make her move before them and use fear my roar on those seducing b!tchez. Then chieftains whipped wyverns to fly inside and poison as much as they could (including succubi, while shooting at them all the time, so eventually when their turn arrived there were only 2 left, who died from poison. No seducing, yay!). Whip daughters after and rush them in front of the gate (not inside, so she can take only one or 2 stacks at a time to attack her, slaughter everything you can before daughters bravely die They actually did half the work (killed 1300 leaping demons in a retal hit, thinned cerberi, helldogs and horses pretty good, cursed with hexing attack) Keep gated stacks away with with fear my roar and hit approaching units one by one, and that's it. Whew! Btw, I checked Gotai's army after that and his whole army was 1 goblin. The spells casted by the hero were lame (he prolly considered it's not worthy, since might over magic took his spell power down at 6 and the goblins did nothing more than use defile, before helping in the final mop-up). The Zehir battle was fun I had only the reinforcements (only 40 of each since I was playing on easy - so my cyclops got killed in one strike ), bout 150 chieftains (god bless them, they saved the battle), 80 mages and 70smth Titans (with magic resistance, HP and luck artifact - that luck was damn useful), I was in month 6 or 7, so Biara was pretty loaded: 50 + 50 devils (upg and alternate), 150 + 250 pit lords/spawns, 650 succubus mistresses , 300smth horses + the (instant) gated units (but they can be puppet mastered too! It was all just Puppet master, whip, puppet master, whip, puppet master, vampirism, whip, puppet master, resurrection, end! I did lose most of my army: only 2 godzillas, the intact stack of vampirized angels, about 10 Titans, a few archmages and 90 chieftains left. My morale and luck helped a lot, I gave Zehir leadership though I never knew until the end that it will be so useful. Plus, almost all the lousy spells that Biara tried to cast on my army got mirrored on her own, so she started shooting instead. The end scene was b0llocks, as usual (I hated that douche Duncan all the time, ew!)

[cjlee]

Played this on normal once and easy once. On normal and easy, the AI does not use level 5 spells which totally changes the game. You can win nearly all battles with low casualties. I won my final Zehir v Biara with a loss of 1 magma dragon and 11 battle mages, and the 11 mages was because I didn't feel like resurrecting.



Because I played each major battle several times to see how different tactics work, I noticed that every action makes an enormous difference.



For nearly all battles, you want the demons to stay within the castle. Do all you can not to destroy the walls. Block the gates with one good unit, preferably with vampiricism, and kill the demons one stack by one stack. Because demons have superb melee and high initiative, letting them gate outside is a bad idea. The exception is Yahlya's battle, where it is better to have the demons come out.



Agree with Maltz and most guys here. Thanes are crucial for dwarves, Earth daughters for orcs.



For Dwarves, divine vengeance is a blessing. You can kill really powerful enemy units by letting them kill your tier 1 and 2.



For Orcs, if you don't scare away the succubi, you are in for a lot of pain. Also watch where you put your units. Remember the cyclopses have area attack! Scaring the succubi seems to encourage demons to come out without gating and get wacked by the higher initiative orcs.



For Dark Elves, Deep Freezing that succubi stack is a big must. It keeps your damage dealers alive much longer. Amazing how good the blood sisters are, and positioning your brisk raiders nearby is a very good idea. You can hit many units without retaliation!



Freyda's Divine Vengeance is a big winner. I also agree with ksmckay: her Ultimate hurts the enemy pretty bad. My pretty average Freyda can take out 6 archdevils per chop.



With Zehir, high morale (artifacts and building boosts) and mass slow, mass confusion makes the difference. I tried playing without casting mass slow/ mass confusion, and I could simply not win. And that is using the same build that got me a total loss of 1 magma and 11 mages!
Edited on Wed, Apr 08 2009, 16:12 by cjlee

[cjlee]

Tried playing on Hard.



Got stuck on my first Wulfstan battle. Then I retrained Wulfstan in Summoning the Dragon, C3M3. Turned Wulfstan into a spellcaster and gave him Zehir's artifacts that enhance spellpower and intel. He had 285 mana when he went to fight.



On Hard. I rushed Zehir through to the trigger points, since I was unwilling to fight every single neutral stack battle again.



Wulfstan won so easily the outcome was never in doubt. Even more surprisingly, the enemy only tried PM once which I easily dispelled, and they only gated in one stack. They did not try seduction. My wulfstan had spellpower of 20, easily higher than the enemy. I found this 'Hard' battle using a spellcaster Wulfstan easier than an 'Easy' Battle with a mainly melee wulfstan!



I continued to Freyda. I tried playing her without clustering her troops - and was utterly crushed in separate tries when the enemy PMed either my paladins or my archangels.



Then I tried playing with a different strategy. I normally use the first inquisitor move to cast righteous might on either paladins or archangels. I noticed that the enemy hero always PMed whoever got the good spell, and used this righteous-mighted stack to hammer my other stacks. So I targeted the ballista with my inquisitors instead. I didn't cast any good spells on archangels or paladins, except regeneration (in order to recover from succubi chain shot injuries)



When I changed my strategy, I won easily. Since I had built up Freyda earlier without resurrection, when I chose to play this final mission on Hard my Freyda lacked resurrection. Yet she won easily, without the enemy even trying one PM.



Clustering your troops makes a huge difference in the way the AI operates. In both my Wulfstan and Freyda Hard battles, since I had retrained them as spellcasters I didn't have the 30% Expert Defense benefit. I clustered everybody around the 'Shield Other' guys. This resulted in the AI heroes and spellcasters whacking them with Area spells nonstop, instead of using PM. Dumb AI! They could have done my side far more hurt by PM-ing my most powerful stack!



After several tries on hard, I have learned this: when playing Freyda, Never cast any good spells without mass confusing/ slowing the enemy first. If you don't have Dark Magic, DO NOT haste archangels or champions. Remember that your Empathy feat can disrupt your own planning - e.g. unexpected morale boost results in you moving Before enemy hero.



I experienced disaster when I hasted my archangels, which got PMed, went on to slay the Champions, Resurrect the enemy Hell Stallions, Hell Stallions killed my remaining champions without retaliation, all before I could cast cleansing by the time of which there are no more champions. And since I had no resurrection and the archangels had used their resurrection, had to reload the game.



After several tries, I find it ideal to put your archangels next to your Squires and shooters. This further guarantees that the enemy will cast area spells rather than PM.



I had a hard time with Kujin on all difficulty settings. Lost on a majority of my tries.



On one try: The enemy threw mass gating and PM at me and I was lucky to win with 5 untamed cyclopses remaining (no way to keep my precious Earth Daughters alive - all 3+3gated stacks of dogs went for them asap).



PM and seduce can be cast without the victim unit ever getting a turn. I have Might Over Magic and the enemy spellcaster was reduced to spellpower of 2. I also targeted the seducers with goblins throws and centaurs. Most seductive attempts wore off before it was the cyclopses or goblins' turn. From experience, PM and Seduce works for 0.03-0.59 of a turn.



Maltz's chieftain whipping up cyclopses strategy is great, but you must choose your whipped unit carefully. For one, your chieftains are a stack of 170 so they inflict considerable damage. For another, the enemy hero usually gets to move after you so they can cast PM. Make sure you don’t whip up cyclopses, let the enemy PM them, and have cyclopses act before PM wears off.



170 chieftains are pretty good at dispatching these nasty multiple stacks of dogs. The dogs move fast and there are 3+3 stacks of them, six thousand or so in total! You MUST kill them fast as they are the enemy's main damage dealers. And you can't move your goblins because they are needed to defile the enemy magics. Since you're left with Wyverns and Daughters (Centaurs are always the first stack to perish), you have to fight with chieftains.



Yahlya had a bizarrely easy battle on hard. The enemy gated once (hell stallions, yucks!), never tried PM or cloning the gigantic succubi stack. I think it was my deliberate use of clustering once again. Clustering your units encourages AI to use area of effect spells. Since PM essentially gives the enemy one free stack, I find it preferable to take damage from spells. Yahyla comes with cleansing, but this spell is useless because Yahlya already has her hands full trying to delay the 1000+ succubi from acting by using Deep Freeze. The succubi ALWAYS aim for your most important damage dealers, the blood sisters.



Zehir started at level 30. I rushed through so fast that Zehir was only level 31 halfway when I showed up at Biara's front door. His stacks sucked, since I missed out on numerous stat boosters. I also missed out on that big stack of Kshatra Rajas, so had to fight with 200+ golems, 36 storm giants, 118 mages and 97 of each Archangel, Cyclops, Black and Magma Dragons.



Biara had far superior stats to my Zehir. She certainly made liberal use of gating and PM-ing and Frenzying. Even worse, Biara can cast cleansing! She repeatedly cleansed my PM of her Devils! Fortunately Zehir can cast much more often than Biara. My final battle on Hard would have been pretty easy if not for that single, unexpected Cleansing spell. (What's that about PM being un-cleanable?)



I don't necessarily recommend PM-ing the Arch Daemons. Depending on your artifacts and whether you have leadership, your morale may range from -3 to 8 (Expert Leadership, Lion's Set plus you leave out the Magma Dragons in favor of the Shadow Mistresses you picked up earlier).



When I played with a morale of 8, I moved much more often than the enemy. But the Nightmares still got a lot of initiative. They get to move first and they move a lot. Worst of all, they often gate early and charge out, thereby unblocking the castle gate.



I find it better to PM the nightmares. So the Nightmares don't get any chance to gate, or to charge out and attack. Instead you want them to suicide-attack the Arch Daemons or Succubi, or at least block the entrance.



When Nightmares are Pm-ed, Biara doesn't bother to cleanse them. Probably because she thinks they are less worth cleansing than your cyclopses are worth PM-ing. But since Zehir has magic mirror, much of the time Biara's spells go awry. And Zehir gets plenty of chances to cast vampiricism to dispel. In several replays, the most successful of Biara's PM was mirrored from cyclopses to mages. I didnt bother to dispel and let the mages blast my own troops. They didn't do that much damage.


Edited on Fri, Oct 23 2009, 12:25 by cjlee

[sylvanllewelyn]

Facts about v3.1:

1) You cannot cleanse puppet master or frenzy from Biara, only vampirism works. Also, you cannot frenzy Biara's stacks.

2) The "900 cyclops feature" does not work anymore. You have to fight all the scripted battles now.



Opinions:

a) Wulfstan's fight is easy as long as you have several ore and gems.

b) Freyda's fight: Don't bother with resurrection, your spellpower is too low. Use magical immunity and just count tiles carefully like you do when you creep.

b) Kujin's fight: the cyclops are actually rather useless against thousands of hellhounds. I thought I lost for sure really, until I saw what 300 earth daughters with 4k+ rage points can do. I still don't know what happened.

c) Zehir's fight: the key is do NOT attack enemies with your stacks. You will barely scratch them and their retaliation will kill you too quickly, becuase of stat differences. Just keep casting spells. I used over 600 mana.

[tearruly]

I am on the last mission and have done all the task except the blue player took over the final city. Is there anyway to win after or do I have to start over?