The Cultist → The Promise

[Grail Quest]

I let auto-combat take over, which turned potential victory to defeat, but still won the map.

*

Phantom Forces was utterly useless most of the way because of the short combats. Maybe it's been toned down even more than when everyone seemed to be talking about how awesome it is, because by the time the battle was over or almost over, the phantom force still hadn't had a chance to move! HOWEVER - Do take it if you are not planning on developing Summoning Magic, since it requires Basic Summoning Magic to learn.


Edited on Tue, Jul 24 2007, 10:49 by Grail Quest

[Grail Quest]

Finally played it again, this time on Heroic. Funny that it was easier than on Hard... I just let Quick Combat handle both final fights, and Agrael's forces won handily.

Against the scouts: Field only the Horned Overseers and the Hell Chargers (in 2 stacks). When I played it, the scout went for the Horned Demons, which I considered expendable because they rarely act in combat due to their low speed.

Against the assassins: Field only the Horned Overseers (do you have any left?) and charge immediately. Only when you are closer should you use Phantom Forces. Instead (and I forgot to do this) use your Mark of the Damned to whittle down a stack every time it attacks. I recommend keeping the second stack of assassins instead of hiring the single Devil available from the Inferno Outpost. Doing so also allows you to maybe take one or two chests for XP instead of gold.

[Watermeloen]

in supposedly earlier patches why u win the scenario after losing the battle vs Veyer is explained in the cutscene

Veyer is obviously larger and stronger but Agrael makes a run for the Heart of the Griffin and banishes him back to Sheogh

[konzky]

You can easily finish this mission in 15 minutes on hard level using quickfight.



I was going after the xp chests, stat boosts and spell shrines, left out the really hard shooters, e.g. the liches, and didn't care for any losses in my battles. Had to fight the crucial two battles manually, because quickfight doesn't work for me there, survived the last battle with 17 demons - this was fast fun!

[ShadowLiberal]

A correction, you have only 9 turns to win this mission in Heroic, not 11.

Also I was able to gain 5 levels here on Heroic, though I didn't have the time to upgrade my army at the Hill Fort.

I thought for sure when I fought Veyer's army that I was screwed, as I had just 33 assassins, 111 horned demons, and 10 Hell Chargers left, but I pulled off a narrow victory. I gated in reinforcements right away, poisoned the lower tier troops with my assassins, and used Mark of the Damned on Veyer's Arch Devils.

I had maybe 10 assassins, and no more then 30 horned demons left when I won.

[Peredhil]

9 turns,true,but I found something in 3 different tries on heroic1.6-if you can reach sand area at the end of 8th move,Veyer will turn back and you have couple more days at you disposal,exactly 11 turns.

[ShadowLiberal]

Ok, Peredhil is correct, mostly. Make it to the sand by day 8 and you'll probably have an infinite number of days left to reach the goal (since the computer starts to go backwards after visiting the hill fort). However do not try to go back past the sand to grab things you missed, since the AI will start rushing towards the goal again.



This basically means once you hit the sand (early enough) you can clear out all the foes around that are and grab all the goodies around there.

[Sunlover]

A few notes [v1.06, Hard] - if you're having difficulty making it to the end to fight Stephan before Veyer does, consider bypassing these areas:

1) the area with the ghosts (though this isn't a time factor issue). Why on earth would you stop to fight those? They'll just whittle down your forces while you try and hit them with a lucky blow.

2) the Hut of the Magi directly East of the ghost stack. It takes away precious travel points during that day, and is it really important for you to know where Veyer is on day 2? Not really. (It's possible you could, in theory, skip all the Magi Huts - but it's not as much fun. This 1st one though is definitely skippable).

3) the Horned Demon tower about halfway up, after the 2nd time you go left, directly west of a Magi Hut. Going here, and then getting back on the path, even with Expert Logistics and Pathfinding, takes 1/2 to 2/3 of your move points for a day. Horned Demons are notoriously slow in battle and not great on damage. Just skip this one and save yourself the 1 day you'll need to get ahead of Veyer - besides, directly NE of there you have an Inferno Military Post with much more useful units to conscript!

4) the Steel Golems guarding the Dragon Bone Greaves. A small side trip, but we know you're going to grab the gold piles behind them, and that takes some time too...



Weirdly when I fought Veyer this go-round, all of Veyer's forces were concentrated at the bottom of the screen. They didn't approach me until I sent out my Horned Demons eventually. This made it very easy for my Pit Lords to get in 2 "group-dense" Fireballs on the entire lot of them. No wonder Veyer's looked down upon.

[Wheeler Dealer]

The Promise, Heroic

I took the spell even though I couldn't use it much because it was so expensive (Hellfire saps my mana).

My first try, I failed when Orange finished on day 10. I was probably still 2 days away.

Second attempt, finished on day nine. I was pretty careless in the fight with Blue, not realizing I would immediately have to fight Orange but I made it in a very close fight.

I skipped battles that took me off course. I never collected resources other than gold and even quit collecting gold near the end. Reached L15 in the fight with Blue but didn't get anything for winning the fight with Orange. I didn't use the Magi Huts and saved and checked whether I wanted spells before I committed to visiting the shrines.

All this and I had Expert Logistics and Pathfinding!