The Necromancer → The Invasion

[Kaede45]

Question: How does one USE the Staff of the Netherworld to convert an Akademy town into a Necropolis?

[Shad0WeN]

@Kaede45



Have Markal equipped with the Staff of the Netherworld and then when you enter or exit the town (I forget which) you should get a pop-up window asking if you want to convert it. You also must have 10000 gold to get the prompt.

[Shad0WeN]

Also a neat tactic for protecting the Westernmost city from invasion is to fill the nearby boat ramp with empty ships, thus preventing the AI from recognizing a path to land there.

[Kaede45]

@ Shad0WeN



Thx a ton! It worked!

[obnxsnewt]

The Sphinx (roughly in the center of the map, just north-west of the town of Ziyad) asked me the riddle:



"Where do Elves write their stories? On books; On trees; or On tattoos"



The correct answer is On Tattoos; I then got a choice of either 20,000 Gold, or 15,000 Experience, or the Phoenix Feather Cape (enhances Fire-based spells by 50%).



If you answer incorrectly you have to fight an exact duplicate of your own Army, including a copy of your Hero with the same stats! (In my case Level 24 Isabel with 1000+ creatures!) And to top it off, if you manage to win the battle, your prize is ZERO experience, but you do get 20K Gold =)
Edited on Fri, Jul 16 2010, 04:13 by obnxsnewt

[xiilus]

My Isabel had lucked into a Sorcery build early, so I gave her both light and dark magic. Markal had scholar, picked up Curse of the Netherworld, and passed it to Isabel. At that point, I decided to just convert all Haven troops to undead, so both heroes could use the curse to its fullest. All hail Queen Isabel the Necromancer! :p

[konzky]

Made it loss-free against the first orange uber-army by fielding only my 25 previously joined bonedragons and casting vampirism and arcane shield on them. Had no puppet master or phoenix, so i had to rely on this tactics. Really worth to try! They can take a lot of damage and are regaining health constantly, so you don't have to weaken them by using the raising dead spell too often.

[VAMPSVSZOUNDS]

If you use the command @OpenCircleFog it actually activates Talanar...

[VAMPSVSZOUNDS]

Narxes has a huge army,but can be defeated pretty easily if you visit the mage vault,cause you get either PM or Phoenix,which is obv uber.Blind is excellent for titans too(I did the fight in quicky ) The heroes are only armed with a pack of gremlins near Al Safir but they get a huge army after you conquer Ziyad.
Edited on Sun, Dec 04 2011, 09:02 by VAMPSVSZOUNDS

[ToweringAmishPlumber]

Help! We completed this scenario (The Invasion) including getting the ending cut scene, but instead of being allowed to play the next scenario (the Regicide), it goes to a menu which has the all scenarios except the first one (The Temptation) grayed out. It will not let us click on The Regicide even though it apparently recognizes that we completed The Invasion. When we replayed the last week or two of The Invasion the scenario ended with the cut scene, but showed the menu with the first two scenarios (The Temptation and The Invasion) available but the following scenarios were grayed out and couldn't be clicked on. For what it's worth we are playing version 1.5.

[ShadowLiberal]

A few tips from my play through in Heroic.



1) It may be a very BAD idea to take out Jhora right away. I stole Ziyad right out from under Jhora's nose, then attacked her when she tried to flee by a boat. Big mistake, she took out a decent chunk of my army (all my tier 6 creatures, and a bunch of lower level creatures) and then was rehired the next day, took Narxes HUGE army, and crushed Markal a few turns later. When I reloaded and let Jhora flee to invade my starting island I was able to successfully take out the much weaker Narxes and his HUGE army with Markal (with a few reloads).



2) When fighting an enemy hero TAKE OUT THE TITANS ASAP. When I fought Narxes I lost the first time because he walled his titans into a corner with obstacles and his own men. I reloaded and let Narxes attack me, and was able to get easy access to his Titans this time, and took him out after a long hard battle.



3) Make sure you summon phoenix & elements ASAP, only use Mass Slow/Confusion first. Fire Elements are awesome at beating down Phantom Images as fast as Narxes casts them (he was casting them a LOT until he started losing, then he kept casting arcane armor). Phoenixes can deal a LOT of damage with Markal's power being around 20, and can also take the retaliation strike for you.



4) For some reason all of Orange's heroes with a decent sized army were uncharacteristically NOT running away when the battle was hopeless for them. Make sure you have some mana to start casting Raise Dead on all of your dead stacks when you're near victory.

[Wheeler Dealer]

AAARGH!!! I can't get through the last portal. I think Cyrus must have stopped in a position that prevents me from passing. I can cause the other portal to fail the same way by blocking the exit with one of my heroes!



I am patched through 1.6

[Wheeler Dealer]

This was stupid! You have to double click the portal instead of clicking on it and then pressing move!!!!

[cjlee]

observations from mod v5.5:

I don't remember how I played this years ago in vanilla H5, but after installing the h5.5 mod I played it again. I was able to build an upgraded vampire dwelling on day 5 and upgrade it using the vampires I picked up. Being able to get vampire lords early tends to make things a lot easier.

[Wheeler Dealer]

The Invasion, Heroic, Max 26

I took the Vampire Lords. Wish I had taken the spell.

Take to the water ASAP to solve the wood shortage. Ore is scarce, and no Sulphur pits for a long time. and exchange rates are brutal even with two markets.

I went clockwise, took an academy town and got into and extended guerilla warfare campaign. I believe an easier, faster approach is to head for the east central town, picking up troops along the way.

Week 1, The Footmen in front of the shipyard joined. Lucky, hired Rutger, he knew Vessel of S and Isabel has Scholar. Hired Kathryn for her 250 gp/day.

Week 2, bought a ship, then another. Defeated Johora.

Week 4, Markal defeated Havez (L20) in a difficult battle. A large number of Obsidian Gargoyles with Arcane armor is very difficult.

Week 5, Took Sihaam (western academy) on 2,1,5.

Week 6, Markal was ambushed by a force he couldn't contend with, had to relaod and run.

Week 8, Took Ziyad on 2,4,4, captured the staff. Two problems, I took it with Isabell, (Markal needs the staff) and it releases the Elven Army which seems too tough just now. I probably should have taken this town much sooner or much later.

Week 9, Razed Ziyad. Isabel took out Green with minimum casualties with a haven/academy army.

Week 10, Markal building his army. Isabel topped out. On the third starting lineup, Havez fled from Markal on the first turn. Jahora did the same thing.

Yet they keep coming back with huge armies!!!

Week 12, Markal reached L26.Took Bahiyaa, winning the Cloak of Death's Shadow. The final garrison is worth over 36K xp. Isabel took it out, holding losses very low by using a Blindness scroll and Resurrection.

Week 13, Took all the towns, Orange has a huge army and a large army chasing two of my heroes in the ocean. Looks like time to finish. Orange landed on my starting Island, then left w/o taking either of my cities. Gained Curse of the Netherworld from the Pyramid.

Week 14, I was about to head for the finish with
85 Bone Dragons, 99 Wraiths, 171 Arch Liches, 313 Vampire Lords, 793 Spectres and 1397 Skeleton Archers and... here's Havez with 37 Titans, 134 R Raja, 173 Djinn Sultans, 303 Archmages, 947 Obsidian Gargoyles and 1648 Steel Golems.

Decided to try him, just for fun. I didn't think I could win without massive casualties but basically only lost 50 Vampire lords and 700 Spectres. Picked up 16 artifacts! The battle was worth over 100K xp.

Solving the riddle offers 15K xp, 20K gp or a bag of gold.

Nothing left to do, finished @4,2,5.