HOMM 4: Might Campaign, it's very hard!

[Johnny Sanders]

Hello!

I'm new to this saga... Actually, not completely! I used to play HOMM 3 a little, but only single scenarios and not even a single campaign... I wasn't very skilled, but I acquired some average knowledge about the game mechanics.

I started HOMM 4 Order campaign... I beated it without any problems, I found it adequately challenging...

Might campaign is different, I had problems since the beginning... It's tricky, and considerably harder. I beat the first level once, but in the second I couldn't really get too far. My Warjaek was built wrongly, I didn't raise Melee and spent precious points into less important things, like Exploration or Magic Resistance... So I decided to start it over from the beginning, trying to do better. I learned about the Immortality Potions Fight, and I started to pratice with it.

But I think I'm always too slow. Blue has a lot of wandering Heroes... He collects all the Artifacts in the Underground before I can get there (especially the Regeneration Armor!). If I leave a city with a little army as defense, as soon as my Warjaek get too far a Blue Hero appears and capture it...

I read in the Walkthroughs that the key of the scenario is to capture the Blue main City asap, and let the Neutral Towns free. But if I rush to get there in the Underground and head for Blue Capital I can't build a real good army, and his defenses are well-built. Is the Regeneration Armor really unmissable?

[GreatEmerald]

That's odd, I didn't have problems while playing it (although I pulled a neat trick to take over the enemy's town while the main hero was away to collect some resources in the caves, allowing me to build enough troops to repel him). Now the Chaos campaign is a whole different story...

[Johnny Sanders]

Maybe I need a little more pratice. But sometimes this level seems to be a mental maze... When I get too far from my town, punctually a Blue Army appears. And I can't recruit any more Heroes because the proper building is disabled...

Do you know if there's any artifact in the scenario that I absolutely need? I'll try again, I guess...

Yesterday I went it to the Blue Capital with a medium force. I had a plenty stock of Immortality Potions, and my Warjaek had full Melee Skill. During the battle I could resist for a while, also exploiting the choke point of the gate... But my troops got annhilated quickly, and Warjaek alone lost too many turns due to Morale. I was decimating Blue troops thanks to Immortality Potions... But they were too many for a single hero...

[ThunderTitan]

Only original campaign i had problems with was Chaos, and only on the first map (not being able to change the difficulty between maps was so annoying, all the other maps after the 1st one where too easy).

Look for guides on how to play a barbarian, you're likely playing it wrong somehow.

[bot]

If you want to win do not open quest borders, less towns to defend, more chances to win. Of course, you need to develop combat skills for main hero. First challenge is defeating the thief to pass the gate. Make this as soon as you can. Then defeat blue. A higher level of difficulty means that blue hero has to defeat strong armies to control mines. You will win when you'll move faster on the map than AI, so capture the blue town with tavern when is less guarded and hire a thief - develop pathfinding only. Then you may hire a knight, to make your army stronger. On the second map you also need a second hero, and guess which one, a thief of course, with stealth skills well developed. He will capture all mines soon and will be better than main hero getting experience from his stealth skill and from combat also. Just keep him alive, it is not necessary to make damage.

[JackintheMox]

I don't recall that particular one campaign to be hard; unfortunately, I don't have HOMM IV installed anymore. If I can find time, I may reinstall and produce a video for you. Either that, or perhaps someone else on these forums could do the same, at least the beginning few weeks to give you an idea on how someone else approached the campaign.

[bot]

I started to play this campaign yesterday. It is very difficult to play champion level, not because of blue player, but the neutral units that must be defeated - the thieves guarding the shore and the hero guarding green tent. So I played expert level. I have no saves with the first map of the campaign because I am not satisfied with the result, Waerjak finished with level 9 because stupid AI didn't take the starting town back. (I didn't open any gate, so it was only one town available on the map). But I have some saves and sceenshots from second map. First you have to get to the tavern to hire a thief, then develop it, it will accompany to the rest of the campaign.

[cjlee]

1) Set a higher difficulty. As surprising as it sounds, Harder campaigns are generally easier for official maps.

This is because neutral stacks are stronger and the AI is dumb, so when the AI is surrounded by strong stacks it won't expand and will remain weak, or better still, run into a powerful stack and turn into a tombstone on the ground.

2) all barbarians must be upgraded with combat skills. No exceptions.

3) If you can hire (I played Waerjack so long ago I can't remember), then always hire somebody else to be the pathfinder/ explorer. This barbarian can be trained into a ranger. Your ranger assistant can hide behind you in a battle - but you must be the Main Hero.

4) Avoid choosing unnecessary skills for your main hero. Even 1 skill point mis-used can give you a lot of trouble later. For instance, if you pick up a magic skill 'for fun', you may wind up being offered dumb magic skills repeatedly.

5) Barbarian heroes have high combat ratings, but heroes are weak vs big stacks. Your hero will take less damage vs a powerful enemy like 2 thunderbirds, but he will take a lot of damage from 100 beserkers. Especially if these beserkers come after your retaliation is used up, so they can hit you twice! It is more worth it to use your hero to fight high level enemies, and use your mass cannon fodders to fight mass enemies.

6) Most barbarian heroes should become generals or field marshals. If you take a look at the stats, you will find that ranged attack is much less than melee attack. Barbarians do most damage by fighting melee. You're not Preserve, where your hero can shoot while Druids, Water Elementals and Faerie Dragons slow down the enemy. When you are a Barbarian, be prepared to do most of the frontline fighting!

You should use ranged attacks only for tactical purposes (e.g. poison arrow and stunning arrow to shoot the fast enemy stacks).

7) TO defeat an enemy with armor of regeneration, you either grab the armor before he does, or concentrate all your power and your troops on killing him. Try to get poison arrow. It's awful when you can only do 30 damage and he heals 30 per turn!

8) One way to defend your castle is to have Waerjack travel only with harpies and thunderbirds. Leave all ranged at home, while Waerjack will be able to go home faster if he has fast units only.

When your castle is fully built up, you can get lots of cyclopses and centaurs and they really deal damage when standing on towers. You really need cyclopses to defend your main town from enemy heroes. Pretty much no one else has a chance.

9) Beserkers are cheap and die easily. You can hire six of them and have them guard far away, so that you have advance notice of enemies coming.

10) Barbarians don't need much resources, but need a lot of money especially with the 50% troop bonus.

[ThunderTitan]

2) all barbarians must be upgraded with combat skills. No exceptions.

All heroes should have the main Combat skill for the Defense, unless you got plenty of Imm. potions or another hero to ress you.

[bot]

My favorite hero remain the thief... He's everywhere on the map, flagging all mines without a fight, gathering all artifacts, gaining more and more experience with his stealth skill. Bonus- neutral units guard my mines. Soon such a hero is able to defeat an entire army alone.

[GreatEmerald]

My favorite hero remain the thief...

Thief is the base class. In order to really excel, they need to become a Ranger (Scouting+Combat) and get the ranged bonuses. But yea, they are awesome in many ways.

[Muszka]

My favorite hero remain the thief...

Thief is the base class. In order to really excel, they need to become a Ranger (Scouting+Combat) and get the ranged bonuses. But yea, they are awesome in many ways.

I prefer Ninjas(Scouting+Death) with Combat. Too bad you need a lot of struggle to avoid getting a Ranger or an Assassin, but on the end it'll worth the effort.

[GreatEmerald]

Poison damage? Why?

[bot]

I prefer a seer or a ranger, depend on the map I play. With 2 good heroes - for ex. a seer+ranger or ranger+general and suitable order spells for the first case I usually have no enemy on the map. But now we talk about the might campaign, where is useless to develop magic skills, unless you choose to play with a sorcerer or a druid. For me was easier to play with a ranger - out of a thief and a general - first hero, which was actually the second-lower level finally. With those 2 heroes I didn't hire almost any creature. They both, no creatures, defeated all AI armies. Only at the end, when Waerjak had to fight alone(without the ranger) I hired some creatures I found nearby. He had GM tactics then.

[ThunderTitan]

Poison damage? Why?

I'm guessing he likes death spells...

[GreatEmerald]

Nature spells would work better - you start with no army, thus you create one. Just that thieves are might-based classes.