Every year i am replaying this particular H3 campaign..

[Artas1984]

There are campaigns you like more than others, you play those campaigns from time to time and each time you replay them you find something fresh, accomplish something new..

My favorite H3 campaign of all time is Armageddon's Blade Playing With Fire. Is it because Fortress is my favorite team? Is it because you get your heroes more buffed than in other campaigns? Perhaps it is because the campaign offers massive map exploration and tons of creatures - much more than in any other campaign?

Whatever the reason, last summer i played it again, and this time my goal was to secure all the garrisons in the 3 mission:



This picture shows the beginning of the 3 mission. In the top right corner, where the mini map is, you can see garrisons with my flags, far from where i start. I never was able to secure all of them - before i would get to all, undead hero would come first and wipe out some. This time i finally did it - i came to rescue all the garrisons before undead could wipe them!

Anyone want to share his exp in this campaign?

[UndeadHalfOrc]

Definitely the most memorable campaign from the Armageddon's Blade expansion.

[Artas1984]

Definitely the most memorable campaign from the Armageddon's Blade expansion.

I bet you have replayed all the the Heroes 3 with your balance mod?

[spectral9]

I'm playing this particular campaign right now for the first time and it's way easier than i initially expected. The first mission was an effortless win - the undead never even entered my half of the map, despite me taking a lot of time to collect army and stuff. Second mission, taking all creature dwellings, was a bit frustrating, took about 4 months.
Now on the beginning of week 4 (month 1) in mission 3, i've already wiped out teal and orange, and took one of two(?) blue castles. On the very first move all opponents built obscuring cloud structures in their castles, i'm now countering their effects by having a spare hero near the hut of the magi to track their armies.
There was a funny moment when Lord Haart miserably ran into a basilisk ambush (near a sulfur mine) and fled (reappearing on the blue island the next day), clearing me a way to another trigger which grated me 30 basilisks
After taking Haunt's Wind, i now have expert town portal which should make the rest of the mission a walk in the park.

Overall, a fun and interesting campaign, even though i mostly dislike grinding through large and complex maps.

[cjlee]

Hi Artas1984

I have some questions for you. I hope you will not be offended!

Firstly, I hate this campaign. I never finished it and I found it ridiculous. But I am not close minded, and I am aware that many people like Adrienne's campaign. Since you like it enough to replay every year, obviously there is something about this campaign that is good! And I want to know how you played it and why you liked it, because I'd like to come back and play it with a fresh perspective!

My POV:

Map 1 was challenging enough. But I always got Adrienne to level 12 before I even finished clearing the fourth castle.
I didn't like the fact that I was dependent on luck. If I got 4 crappy heroes, these losers would follow me to the next map.
I didn't understand why I got human castles. Adrienne starts out with Expert Fire Magic and none of these castles can give her good spells! And there are no Fortress Creatures on your side apart from what you start out with!
Without Fortress Creatures, that swamp crawl becomes slow and very irritating.

Map 2 was wayyyy too big. It felt too mechanical, systematically killing neutrals to liberate or flag some creature dwelling. Once again, I was very limited as to the spells I could get. Thinking that I should make Adrienne a more powerful spellcaster, I had given her 2 other spell schools (water n earth) - and was sorely disappointed.

Map 3 was even bigger and wayyy too frustrating to finish. (It seems all your heroes should have Expert Earth and Town Portal or else it isn't worth playing.)

Do you mind sharing with me how you play this campaign and how you made it enjoyable?

[BoardGuest808888]

Yeah. Other than Adrienne being cute, I never like this campaign as well.

[Pol]

I also like this one and replayed it several times, way back. The key for fun playing for me were carefully chosen skills for my heroes. Speed & Power is essential!

In the last map I probably never was fast enough to capture all garrisons before enemy but that doesn't mattered.


Sandro is fighting Lord Haart, epic. No time to loose, heroes don't need to be overpowered. But they do know Town Portal. Aye. Link.

[Korbac]

I didn't like the fact that I was dependent on luck. If I got 4 crappy heroes, these losers would follow me to the next map.

Well, a lot of things are based on luck in Heroes. Besides, you can rehire these heroes easily. If you got in an unfavourable situation - it is a part of the game and you should see that as a challenge for yourself.

I didn't understand why I got human castles. Adrienne starts out with Expert Fire Magic and none of these castles can give her good spells! And there are no Fortress Creatures on your side apart from what you start out with!

Yeah, but the probabilities of getting fire spells are somewhat higher for castle than for fortress. Besides, having a level 4 mage guild is better than having a level 3 mage guild for a witch hero.

Also a level 4 guild gives you the opportunity to get that town portal spell and breeze through the other 2 scenarios with ease.

Without Fortress Creatures, that swamp crawl becomes slow and very irritating.

Swamp crawl is a part of the game. And it is just the first scenario - the easiest one, so shouldn't be a problem.

Map 2 was wayyyy too big. It felt too mechanical, systematically killing neutrals to liberate or flag some creature dwelling. Once again, I was very limited as to the spells I could get. Thinking that I should make Adrienne a more powerful spellcaster, I had given her 2 other spell schools (water n earth) - and was sorely disappointed.

I agree. I also felt kinda the same about flagging the creature dwellings. Still, it's a good scenario imho.

How can you be disappointed with water and earth :/ They give u town portal, resurrection, mass slow, mass bless, teleport, earthquake, antimagic, mass bless and some other awesome spells.

Map 3 was even bigger and wayyy too frustrating to finish. (It seems all your heroes should have Expert Earth and Town Portal or else it isn't worth playing.)

I find this to be the most massive scenario of the entire game. The amount of castles on that map was just HUUUGE. I really enjoyed the big epic battles I had. Adrienne's town portal helped, of course

--------------------------------------

I think there are a couple unusual things about this campaign:

1) The main enemy is the Necropolis - the most inconvenient foe for the Fortress - they are immune to Death Stare and Wyvern poison.

2) Adrienne's specialty is fire magic, which is very unusual for Fortress. Not a lot of spells benefit the Fortress creatures directly. Besides, if you get mass curse - you can't use it cuz your enemies are undead.

P.S. Guys, what scores did you get for this campaign ?

P.S.S. Fortress is my favorite faction

[Artas1984]

There was a funny moment when Lord Haart miserably ran into a basilisk ambush (near a sulfur mine) and fled (reappearing on the blue island the next day), clearing me a way to another trigger which grated me 30 basilisks

i have experienced this event too, probably on my first playthrough.

After taking Haunt's Wind, i now have expert town portal which should make the rest of the mission a walk in the park.

Town Portal is available in the second map already, once you rescue 30 water elementals in the dungeon. So when you start 3 mission, you should have it already.

Hi Artas1984

I have some questions for you. I hope you will not be offended!

So here is how i play:

First thing is to get Adriene right! Teaching her earth magic, logistics and pathfinding is a must for me! I also try to build mage guild levels as fast as possible, in order to get Town Portal. I replay per new if i don't get Town Portal in the first mission. Then i also recruit another spellcaster, a helper, and teach him other magic schools, scholar and eagle eye - this way i can save some major time with Adrienne simply having to meet him and learn new spells from him. The third hero i acquire is either a gnoll leader or lizardmen leader - it is really important to have a warrior hero, who's specialty is level 1 or 2 creatures, because it gives the army of that unti a +1 speed advantage, which is crucial. All the low profile creatures i keep to the warrior, while high profile creatures i keep split to mages. The 4 hero is the rescued Christian with random BS at his side.. I also acquire a hero with a specialty in some resource - so then i can trade something i have into something i don't, which is sulfur, most of times.

Before i go to the second mission, i teach max XP and max possible skills to all my heroes.

Second mission - i make sure that Adrienne gets to grab all the primary skill monks first (protected by crystal golems), not my enemy. I attack the Necromancers with Adrienne asap with what i collect by the road.
It's really important in this mission to get the most out of what the map offers before the end of 7 month. I play this map long enough, because it is my favorite, i enjoy wasting time buffing my armies up. I visit all available primary and secondarily skill buffers with all of my 4 heroes - ALL.

In the 3 mission, i go southeast with Adrienne and to the north with another mage. Christian becomes a scout, Drakon becomes the collector of troops. Adriene becomes the releaser of troops and castles, and the second mage becomes the defender.


My strongest build of all time was Adriene buffed to 92 skill points in defense and with a bit lower values in other primary skills, with an army of 1900 hydras, xxxx other middle creatues and 36000 gnolls - that is the record for any hero in Heroes 3 i have ever had.

The last time i played i ended only with 200+ hydras.

[Korbac]

Before i go to the second mission, i teach max XP and max possible skills to all my heroes.

That's how I used to play every campaign. And then you just steamroll your opponent in the last scenario.

[Mn]

My liked MM3 campaign is "Eternal Love" by Hans C. - try to play it

[XEL II]

My liked MM3 campaign is "Eternal Love" by Hans C. - try to play it

HoMM3.

[Bones_xa]

I never really enjoyed Adriene's campaign all that much either. It was fun I guess to have so many heroes carry on, but it took SO long to have them all visit everywhere on each map.
For fortress campaigns, I actually kind of liked Tarnum's Revolt of the Beastmasters. I've done it 3 times the last time being on hardest difficulty all the way through and it still wasn't that hard. The only problem with that campaign was that I was unable to get town portal on all 3 times I played it. Was thinking that maybe it was disabled for this campaign?

[Arret]

First couple times I had played this campaign I remembered that there was a lot of tedious travel, but that I loved the lore aspect of the mindless undead (felt it was done much better here than with Sandro in SoD).

So I just replayed this campaign and I have got to say that logistics specialists are the way to go. It really made the last two scenarios trivial.

Scenario 1: Get level 4 spells everywhere and get 3 heroes to level cap (Adrienne and 2 logistics specialists).

Scenerio 2: Steamroll everything with meteor shower and charge the opposing cities. Once opponents are taken care of start flagging everything. Feels tedious at this point, but the creature generators give their bonuses to every city on the map. Finished in 9 weeks (previous times on this scenerio were over 5m, and 4m2w).

Scenario 3: Get the easy cities first, then go after garrisons. Since you can take the troops out of the garrisons they really are all you need to finish the scenario. My main hero (Barbarian logistics specialist) had 51 attack power by the time the scenario was over. Finished scenario in less than 3 weeks.