Homm2 Can't Beat Final Battle

[BMJedi]

Hello, I just replayed the homm2 good campaign, and got through all the scenarios without any serious problems winning, except for the final map.

I took the crown instead of the extra army, so no help there. It starts with three different castle types, all very spread out, so no combining armies. Roland is one of the heroes, and can't be retreated if he gets in over his head.

The problem for me is that the enemy seems to be starting out with huge armies without having to build them. I just quit in frustration when one of my early scouts found a necromancer hero on week three who had twenty-five vampire lords and forty-eight mummy lords.

And that was after I had huge casualties defeating a barbarian on week two who was already near my castles with 140 goblins, 50 wolves, 30 orc cheiftans, 30 nomads, and 10 war trolls.

I find these numbers at the beginning of a map impossible to deal with. Any thoughts or advice?

[Salamandre]

In Homm3 mass spells can make the difference, but in Homm2 magic scouts with fast units and lightning bolt can decimate an army before it is close to your town. Spread havoc with them, surrender and do it again until their armies are past. A warlock or wizard level 5-6 is enough for casting 4-5 lightning in a battle before running away. Try to destroy one entire stack at once.

[Darmani]

You start the map fairly developed as well. The best defense is a good offense. If you have a strong and fast hero attacking to the northeast, you don't need to defend your northeast.

The AI has the advantage of lots of resources and troop growth. Your advantages are a powerful hero and human skill. You need to leverage your advantage. This consists of attacking almost immediately -- before the AI can capitalize on their numerical superiority.

An AI player might have three times the numbers, but if they're spread across three heroes, each equal in strength to you, with a bit of skill, you can defeat all three with relatively few losses.

Even if you're a novice, you're still smarter than the AI. The AI is extremely shortsighted. You can probably move your troops in a straight line across the battlefield without them blocking each other. The AI can't.

Hit and run tactics as described by Salamandre definitely have their place, but they're fairly expensive to use and not to be relied upon. IIRC, last time I played Armageddon I did have to defend a castle at least once with that strategy, but only after I had already conquered large swaths of other parts of the map.

Though, if you really must use hit-and-run, might I suggest the Phoenix/Elemental Storm combo? Also, the AI tends to cast spells every round. Attacking with dummy heroes to drain their mana is a similar, but more economical tactic.

[Kristo]

Also keep in mind that the AI can't resist the lure of an undefended castle. So while you're out conquering large swaths of the map, take a castle and keep going. I wouldn't be surprised to see the AI retreat back to reclaim its castle, thus taking the heat off your home castles. Then, to really mess with the AI's "head", let him have his castle back but don't leave him anything to buy. The AI will tend to leave part of his army as a garrison, making the hero easier to take on. Rinse and repeat as needed.

The general idea here is give the AI a taste of its own medicine. You'll be doing to him what you were initially letting him do to you. Keep the strong heroes bottled up like this and they can't do you any real economic harm. The castles aren't going anywhere, so they can be cleaned up at your convenience.

[BMJedi]

Thanks for all the good advice.

I'm actually thinking at this point that I should have done the gauntlet map and tried to get some troop numbers, and that taking the magic crown was a huge mistake. The trouble with going back now is that I would have to replay the Corlagon map, and I really don't care to go through that again.

Also, I don't really understand how the gauntlet map is supposed to work. I get the eight week time limit and the solve-the-labyrinth issue, I just don't understand how you're supposed to get any bonus troops out of it. Does "in your army carries over" mean "with your strongest hero" or "every unit you've hired all over the map at the win point."

I'll probably take a break and come back to it later, because it was starting to get to the "no fun" point.

[Darmani]

The army carries over with your first hero.

If you're shooting for a top score, the crown might be a better choice -- 8 weeks is a while. If you just want to win, it will definitely be easier to leverage the army into a victory than the crown.

[Kristo]

I once won the Evil final battle scenario in 8 days using the carryover troops instead of the Crown. It definitely takes longer to get the troops, but the payoff in time is huge. And no, I didn't arrive at that solution myself. I read someone's story of a really high speed campaign victory and executed it. Anyway, I think you can pull off a similar feat in the Good campaign, though I've never tried it.

[adam77]

I once won the Evil final battle scenario in 8 days using the carryover troops instead of the Crown. It definitely takes longer to get the troops, but the payoff in time is huge. And no, I didn't arrive at that solution myself. I read someone's story of a really high speed campaign victory and executed it. Anyway, I think you can pull off a similar feat in the Good campaign, though I've never tried it.

This works in the good campaign as well. Just checked my old saves, I found one where I finished the Gauntlet map on M2/W1/D2 with 15 black dragons and some other troops (which do not matter). So you do not need to play for 8 weeks and it does not make your score bad. As I remember you get the troops which survive the final battle on the Gauntlet map.
I reached Archibald's castle on M1/W2/D2 on the final map (using the sorceress hero with expert navigation), carried only the dragons which was enough even in auto combat mode.

[Darmani]

Interesting. I've done that too in the Evil campaign, but I believe I would have lost if I had spent less time building an army.

Meanwhile, I've beaten Archibald in a month from the Crown using almost no army, the Book of Summoning, and a lot of spell points.