Might & Magic: Heroes VI - Stronghold - The Good, the Bad, a

[FreshHope]

If you would like to take a look at the original page visit this link:
https://www.celestialheavens.com/800

[FreshHope]

Hi maltz, that is another great walkthru you've written. Thanks for all the hardwork to help out the community here I played the campaign order as suggested in the forum to make the storyline more fluid (not as per faction order as suggested in your Necropolis M1 intro). Incidentally, all my heroes have the same might/magic and blood/tear combination as per your walkthrus (even though they arent out yet except the Necropolis campaign), except for Sandor, which i went might/blood path (i was eyeing maxed out life drain with high dmg output/initiative feature of this faction).



The cool cyclop hero, Acamas, did follow me to M3. I'm suprised that he didnt follow you upon following tears path. I dont recall any convo pertaining to the blood/tear path in this mission.



Another note is the level cap. I did hit the level cap with Sandor after defeating Fort I, which was garrisioned by swarms of Centaurs and Dreamwalkers (that was pretty early, after owning Towns D, E, F, as i left all the neutral stacks alone and head straight to this Fort I so i can reduce Sharka's creature production and boost Sandor's in return). Upon discovering that Acamas will carry over to M3, i started to use him to fight all the remaining neutral stacks and collect all the stat boosters, and he also managed to hit lvl 17 before Sandor finished up Sharka. Both heroes i did not need to use the Shrine of the Seventh Dragon to reach their lvl caps. I completed this mission with patch v1.1.1, not sure if v1.2 changes all these. Cheers!
Edited on Mon, Dec 26 2011, 14:21 by FreshHope

[maltz]

Thanks for your information. A very easy way to level up your secondary hero is to give your main hero the Mentor ability BEFORE he/she reaches level II of Tear/Blood reputation. This way, you can both level up your secondary hero for free, and also remove the ability point spent on Mentor by the time you reach level II or Tear/Blood (by respecialize).

[fair_n_hite_451]

I can confirm that the issue with the walls not adding to creature growth has been fixed. I assume through a patch which came out after the walkthrough was posted ... but I went through the process of saving at week end, building the wall and comparing creatures available to hire on Day 1 (with no "week of ..." influence) just to be sure.

[capprice]

i can confirm on 1.2.1. Tear path /hard. Level cap is 17. Acamas did not follow.

Walls are adding creature growth.

Btw with 20% diplomacy, not a single big stack of neutrals offered to join, instead many fled. My army was way bigger, almost 1shot anything with centaurs. Is this skill working or what?

[ToniG]

@ capprice: Diplomacy is worthless. At least in H6. I've tried it with every faction and the result was the same. The troops that joined me were the ones scripted to do that.

[jaga]

I hit the road for Sharka right after defeating Acamas, but his troops are immense, 2 to 5 times of my same tier creatures. Even the auxiliary Sharka heroes crusading my towns have avoidably large troops. Presumably due to late conquering of Town D (in last 10 days).

[Sir_Toejam]

"Don't worry about the branch roads - there is nothing valuable, and you will be able to come back later. "



gotta disagree here. It's worth taking the extra week to collect all the resources in the beginning area before triggering the move to the NW. There are more troops you can win at a small arena, an artifact behind the cyclops, and a lighthouse that will come in handy, plus you need every scrap of wood and stone you can lay your hands on, and cash besides. If you do that, you can build harpy and dreamwalkers in the first week of owning your town, and hire a secondary hero to start collecting loose stuff and exploring (you should have 3 days of building available to you; recruit secondary hero first, then build dreamwalkers, then harpies). Ignore Maltz here and clear the entire area before triggering the convo with Sharka. really really. the units you make that week complement those you get from local events perfectly.



other noteworthy things:



there are only about half the full complement of heroes available at the tavern, and they have half sized armies as well. Guess the place really is isolated



Cyclops grow normally now, with the platinum bonus to champ growth, plus 2 cyclops dens, I had 13 in my first week.



Also disagree with not putting points into counterattack. Once you get jaguars, as Maltz notes, the ai will target them. how to make real use of that? why by not only reinforcing them, but using them as your shock troops with counterattack III! amazing amounts of damage on the first turn, and the reinforcements will nearly double their stack size, making it even unlikely you will need to heal them.





about diplomacy: The point of getting diplomacy is mostly just for reducing the costs of recruiting passive stacks. There is a tiny chance you might sway a stack to join you if you army isn't overwhelming in size, but really, the main thing is just to reduce costs, which can be astronomical for large neutral stacks. If you go tears route, you can cut costs by around 25%. That really comes in handy in certain places, for example Irina's campaign, map 4, which indeed has a couple of huge neutral stacks that would cost more money than you have at the time if you rushed to go and recruit them. It ends up being a case of literally have to change strategies if you don't have diplomacy at that point. Just an example of the idea that diplomacy is not useless, but it IS very situational, and unlike previous heroes games, does not have a significant impact on whether a group will join you or not.


Edited on Tue, Jul 30 2013, 23:29 by Sir_Toejam