The Ranger → The Defense

[Grail Quest]

After a long hiatus, I came back to slowly finish off H5, picking up where I left off at the Sylvan Campaigns.

On my first attempt at NORMAL (after trying the Dungeon campaign on Heroic, I quit that frustrating sometimes impossible-for-me difficulty), I noticed two things: (1) You start with more or less no renewing resources unless you venture out. This means if you leave a garrison behind, you are forced to upgrade buildings to stack your units. (2) You can leave a partial garrison behind and mix and match troops. The recommended garrison is more than good enough on Normal and you can make up attrition with at least upgraded dragons.



I restarted early and tried a mad dash to take the eastern town, hoping to find the source of the Purples. No luck, but it did show that if you have Expert Logistics, a mad rush by Findan, stopping for nothing, can see him take both Teal cities and still be back in time to defend against the second major hero.

On Normal, the first major Purple (level 24 Kaspar) can be defeated (narrowly) by a LEVEL ONE hero if you manually control combat and have a full two weeks of growth, including 5 Emeralds and lots of unicorns and treants.

I had Wyngaal holding the fort after the initial wave of quick weenie Purples and sent Findan with his initial army out to take the towns. Wyngaal won with 8 unicorns, 5 treants, 16 druids, 30 Master Hunters left. Findan, who had Ressurrection, returned from the mainland utterly victorious with his full army.

(I saved the replay and can post a YouTube if anyone is interested).



The walkthrough suggests Findan turtle Purple in the combat to re-take the capital, but I don't know how to do that as at some point, although the troops are shooting at my sprites, the enemy hero starts cutting down my dragons. Raven had higher initiative than Findan and I was lucky to use Ressurrect once, and lost only 2 dragons in the initial battle.

[Peredhil]

Heroic1.6.Findan knew Resurrection,so he managed to maintain most of his army alive.He captured both teal towns in 3 weeks with his 20 dragons,and the rest of the troops remained in garrison.However, purple heroes were very reluctant to siege my town.(I shipped reinforcements from second town every 2 weeks);Deirdre wait until 3d week, ,then merged armies with Kaspar;but when I recruited all troops,the cowardly b***h turn and run back to monolith area(where I could not catch her );more cautious,Kaspar just stayed and admired my capital;however those frightened heroes caused an avalanche of script errors,culminating with freeze game.Twice.So badly that I needed to reset my PC.Then I lured them out with a trick as old as the Heroes series-the single unit hero,backed up at strike distance by the real army.They gladly took the bait,every time.Only then the errors reduced greatly.Such a good way to script heroes behavior ....
Edited on Sun, Jul 26 2009, 15:10 by Peredhil

[Pave]

Ok, it's official. I really do hate the Sylvan campaign. I'm doing re-run of all the campaigns and before I got to Sylvan I was actually having fun. I don't remeber how I managed to beat this mission the first time I played it, but now I just can't get through it. I managed the initial battle with 18 dragons alive, I keep killing purple heroes without many problems, I took the second Sylvan town and I headed towards the garrisons. The problem is I encountered a necro guy with at least 5 weeks' worth of full upgraded 7-tier necro troops and it is still week 3. There's just no way my (at this point only) 16 surviving dragons can get through 15 spectral dragons, 25 wights, 30 archliches etc. Have you all somehow killed this guy and consider him only a minimal nuissance and that's why I haven't seen him mentioned here or am I just having one of those days?

[Peredhil]

@Pave

Playing on heroic,I've encountered that necromancer twice: in w1d6 near second Sylvan town(about one third of that army-5 spectrals,7 wraiths...) and in w3d2 on the road to Necropolis(10 spectrals and so on...).Findan had 20 dragons and Light with Resurrection.The enemy fled after first blows(tactics helped).Easier than the garrisons.

[Sequoa Throne]

Thanks so much for the walkthrough!

[bkknight2602]

One critical item in this mission, that had me stumped. When the objective is to fortify(?) the garrison, the trrops MUST be in the garrison part of the town. If you have them in the front with a hero the objective is not met. After a lot of trial and error I found that by moving the hero with trrops back and forth completed/uncompleted the objective.
Edited on Sun, Jul 17 2011, 20:47 by bkknight2602

[ShadowLiberal]

You're going to have to split up Findan's army in order to advance, otherwise the necromancers will overwhelm you.



If you got resurrect earlier then I'd suggest leaving everything but the 20 emerald dragons to guard the town. Findan's resurrect can keep them alive, and defeat the enemy heroes himself.



Oh and Nature's Luck on Findan rocks, if you're playing in the TOTE then aim to get it in this mission, it'll make things much easier.

[cjlee]

The key to completing this map is... don't play too well!



Do I sound like a moron? Well, that's the problem Ubisoft created. Apparently Maltz (no disrespect intended, you're great Maltz!) didn't kill enough troops during the siege defense. Then when it was Findan's turn to save the city, Maltz must have suffered considerable losses. My Findan killed the enemy with few losses (I didn't have resurrection, but I literally got lucky. All my attacks dealt pretty awesome damage because I'd stacked up the luck perks last mission).



Result: Even though I gave Findan the 20 Emerald dragons, I was able to leave a pretty large army in the incapable hands of my newly hired-level 1.



It turns out that this army, totally unfortified by any hires, is sufficient to keep all subsequent necromancers at bay! (remember, Findan's bunch are all upgraded and you get an un-upgraded Syris Thalla)



At the end of the first month the level 30 necromancers have barely ventured out of their corner before fleeing back at the sight of my Level 1 hero defending the castle. Even combined, their armies are rated "threat level, normal." Which is utterly ridiculous because I'm basically fielding Findan's starting army minus the losses and minus 20 emerald dragons.



Problem is, the Necromancer 'hiding zone' where you can't attack only has space for TWO heroes. When both don't dare to venture out, no more Necromancer heroes can spawn and all the scripts are messed up. The whole game ends here unless you split up the garrison defending Syris Thalla and give away some troops to another hero.



Even more infuriating, Ubisoft has made it such that you can't hire anybody, not out of lack of dwellings or lack of money, but because they have scripted the game so badly. Unless the threat level says 'high', your damned opponents will NEVER attack you meaning the scripts will be screwed up.



(I'm responding to Peredhil at 2009-07-26 05:12 as well as my own experiences playing this map several times over the past few years)

[ShadowLiberal]

The way to get the necromancers to come out of their hiding place is to send your hero onto a boat. Once the enemy gets close enough go back to shore and back to town.

Also, town portal could potentially be used to.

Oh and I never noticed any scripting problems when I was playing through this mission. And my level #1 hero was attacked once or twice when I played through this mission.

[vil2]

The purple player did not attack my capitol city before several weeks. As he came for the first time, he stayed stucked on the shore for several turns.

It was cool for me, as my Findan was able to conquer town 2 and come back to learn Resurrection in the Capitol, while killing the purple hero with his 15 emerald dragons. Besides, this made the defending hero in the capitol much more solid because he did not fight during the first weeks.

Then the purple attacked two or three times my capitol, but the defenses were tough enough.

I don't know what caused this behaviour, maybe because as he came for first time, there was my Findan (with dragons) AND my capitol (well defended) so he was stucked because he did not know where to attack.



Another point worth mentioning is that as I encountered a teal enemy hero, he was quite stronger than me (30 Wights and 15 spectral dragons, plus an according army). I could not kill him even with my resurrection spell because he was raising undeads troops. My 14 Emerald dragons were dying. I tried the fight many times, and as I tried a quick combat mode, the result was that the enemy fled and he killed only a single emerald dragon. Worth it : I met him again the week after and was able to wipe him very easily.



Anyway, mission was much more easy than anticipated, good point !22
Edited on Tue, Mar 18 2014, 15:36 by vil2

[Serghey]

It's been such a long time since my last playthrough, but I'm still a big fan of the series, and I must admit, I personally consider Heroes V the best in the game series (yes! better than 3! - and I will not explain myself). So, I got to this mission, playing 1.4 patch, Hard. I don't like Heroic as it involves too much effort, loading and reloading, praying to Asha, Quick Combat, builds that rely on luck, etc. No time or patience. So, your objective is to recapture Syris Thalla, right? But the thing is, the objective doesn't have a time limit. What if I just leave the island and capture the teal towns first, mess around a bit, then come back? There will be no pesky AI attacking for nothing, no bugged scripts, etc. I will simply do my thing, then come back for the capital and enjoy the onslaught, as I doubt necro will hire sylvan units, and even if they do, the morale penalty is too juicy for them to count. I will write what happens after I finish.

[cjleeagain]

Serghey, it's a long time since I last played this mission. (I wrote something above in my previous account). But IIRC, I tried to do this also because the starting army was so tempting. It isn't worth it because you don't get enough experience on the map.

[Serghey]

I was wrong, there is a time limit, even if it's not directly hinted in objective description! On day one, week two, you fail the mission ) Nival and Ubisoft were sneaky. But I did it the old fashion way, and my level 1 defending hero reached level 24 by the end of the mission (Anwen - very convenient), with a pure castle defender build, he was awesome: defence - and all normal subsequent feats (as last stand would have been useless and impossible to reach with that hero); summoning with fog veil; attack for archery and luck with elven's luck! More fun with him defending than with Findan, who is too strong and boring for that mission Also, didn't get Resurrection spell in neither castle, but mission 4 is also a joke for Findan. I had a little difficulty in last scenario against the first necro hero, Raven, as he casted mass confusion, and I didn't had mass cleansing (had master of wrath, abjuration and storm wind), no resurrection yet, but managed to beat him, summoned some creatures and took the weak defended castle. The only real battle was on the last island, and not with Nicolai, but Vladimir (the Reanimator) - 9k skellie, 168 spectral dragons, 778 spectre, 130 liches, 300 vampire lords and some 350 zombies, but he attacked me in a castle (I only had 30 Emerald dragons, 158 master hunters, 79 druid elders, 400 pixies - some joined, 168 blade dancers, 60 unicorns, but, my lifeline, 105 ancient trents). He did cast pm, mass confusion, but I was better equipped (armour of forgotten hero 20% magic resistance, 15% from luck skill, and 10% from boots - 45% magic resistance!!!). After that battle, I was free to visit all stat boosts and defeat the last spectral dragon stacks, as Nicolai was cowering in the middle castle with about 3 weeks of troop growth. I summoned some more form main castle and it was done! Now for Zehir and Arcane Omniscience - I can't really think of a better build, but if I'm not offered Attack skill in first mission, I may abandon the project and take Dark, as he already starts with summoning.

[Wheeler Dealer]

The Defense, Heroic, Max 24

Talanar and Dirael return for Mission 5

I took the Unicorns.

During my defense of the capitol, I concentrated on the Liches first, the skeleton archers second. Reclaimed the capitol, lost 3 Emerald Dragons and all my Blade Dancers.

Week 1, The enemy built my Dragon Altar for me! Not too sure about sending Findan off with a tiny army and leaving a newly hired hero to defend with the main army. Findan took the 28 Silver Unicorns and 6 sprites. I hired two other heroes, one to defend and one to gather/explore.

So far so good, Findan took Teal's Sylvan town on day 7 but Purple never attacked!

Week 2, Exploring and claiming mines.

Week 3, Fetched my 17 Emerald Dragons, cleared both Teal Garrisons losing only a few sprites. Availability of crystal is holding back my growth. Defeated Teal Zoltan, lost one Silver Unicorn when he ran before I could cast Resurrection. Took Teal's Necropolis eliminating Teal. Purple finally sent a small army toward my capitol and was turned back by Ossir.

Week 4, a large Purple Army is parked outside my capitol. Findan maxed out. Rescued Talanar (L28). One Problem, if he earns any xp, his xp revert back to the minimum for L28, losing 333K xp.

Week 5, Recruited Dirael (L28).

Week 6, Ossir defended the capitol. Ossir chased down the "last" Purple hero. I received final objectives.

Week 7-8, Hit all the plus ups. Some new Purple heroes appeared but they didn't attack, and I couldn't attack them. Brought Talanar and Dirael back to the capitol and put them both inside at the same time with an adequate garrison.

I had to use the trick suggested in the walkthrough, Put Findan in the castle and hire a new hero! I would have never figured that out on my own.

Won @ 2,4,5. I never allowed my L28 heroes to gain xp so we'll see if they get busted back down to the minimum for that level in Mission 5.