Might & Magic: Heroes VII - Haven - A Feast for the Gods

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You continue from the previous map; Tomas now has to consolidate his position from Hammer Fall and build his own country away from the empire. Start out by talking to your councillors around you. Talking to Ella gives you some great artefacts. Also flag the mine and pick up resources around. Then talk to Serguei to send him packing.

 

This map is a classic big Heroes map with lots of enemy heroes and towns. Head down the stairs and start picking up stuff. Standard prcedure: build towns, flag mines, explore and fight creatures. When travelling around on the plains, an enemy hero named Orna will turn up from the north to kill you. The audacity! She seems to go for the nearest town (Blackforge), so take your strongest hero, give him your troops and go kill her. The enemy army is not very big, but she does have 10 seraphs, so don't take it too lightly. Winning is worth 30.000 exp. Another hero is coming the same path and then another via the sea to the east, so be ready for more fights. I counted three enemy heroes coming, after that it seemed peaceful.

 

There are several dwellings to the northeast, those can boost your armies. Also take note of the Merchant nearby, selling and buying artefacts. The road to the north is blocked by an avalanche, so just setlle for taking control of the mines and levelling up your heroes.

 

When you have control over the western area, it's time to cross the bridge by the orc settlement. Turn left after the bridge, clear the area and head into the underground for more loot. There's also an obelisk there, one of nine. The only thing in the underground you can't do without a huge army is the Shantiri Ruins. The Dragon Utopia is easier. When the underground is clear, head back up and go right. Head down the other underground entrance and you will find both an Elemental Conflux and a level-up shrine, the latter becoming all the more valuable at such high levels. You might also find some enemy heroes down here, but they don't seem too much of a challenge. Heading east, there is an exit taking you to a small island with an obelisk and stuff to fight for. Further north, you will find stairs to the surface and when you reach it you find an enemy town called Oakmoor. Capture it.

 

As is customary with Heroes games, the AI has not cleared its area completely. Speed is of the essence here, so don't plunder the mines since that depletes your movement points. Just to the west of Oakmoor is another town called Whitesand Creek. Take that as well and those roaming heroes should soon think twice about invading your lands and consider defending their own instead. To the south is an obelisk as well as much goodies to collect; keep clearing the area and try to consolidate your position. Between the two newly captured town is a Trading Post that can be useful. To the southwest is a bridge leading back to your own lands; I encountered no less than five enemy heroes there. This is becoming annyoing. I killed some, but some ran away to the west. Follow and you'll see why: there's a two-way portal there, allowing them to be annoying in several places. Go after them and fight them one after another. Eventually, you will find a town. Take it. That will surely put a dent in their hero recruitment. Just to the south is a fort you need to capture in order to cancel the enemy's area of control.

 

Losing all towns does something to the AI's mind; it becomes desperate to conquer any town and you should have guards posted at all towns to avoid sudden annoying recaptures. This while you hunt the last remaining forts and rogue heroes out there. Once you have eliminated them all (I stopped counting after ten), the Haven campaign ends. Tomas held his new lands free and independent from the empire. The lesson is for you to decipher.
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[Kenshinzen]

After I killed first hero with heavy casualties my hero retreated to Blackforge. The other enemy hero didn't attack there but moved to orc settlement but also didn't attack after I moved orc hero in there. I think if you have a hero behind the walls they don't attack but not sure.

[Kalah]

Yes, sometimes they choose not to attack a hero in a fortified town if the hero has a sizeable army compared to its own. The threat assessment AI calculates that it is much more difficult to take the town when it's defended.

[Wizard of Soz]

This map was odd, mainly because the enemy AI seemed super aggressive to the point of stupidity, whiiiiiiiich I totally took to my advantage!

There are 3 big armies and they sometimes seem to combine under one hero. So I gave all my creatures to Tomas (minus the Orcs) and sent him immediately East through the East Garrison and beat Orna (taking pains to keep my casualties low). At the same time I took Bilashi and went North though the North Garrison. For some reason the enemy hero's ignored him and I was able to take Oakmoor. Meanwhile I moved Tomas up and got him to take Whitesand Creek.

While this was going on I took a slash and burn policy with all of my towns, other than Hammerfal,l and started demolition on Blackforge and the Orc town all the way to level 1. Any creatures produced at these towns before they went down to level one were sent to Hammerfall, which was the only town I built up to defend.

I now had 2 of their towns, both fully built , while they were going to take my level 1 towns.

Leaving Bilashi to guard the captured towns, I sent Thomas back to head off the army heading for Hammerfall. I then sent a rearmed Bilashi to guard the North Garrison and had Tomas chase the enemy armies around my own territory who were trapped in. Ha it was glorious!!

After beating them I just simply moved to take a poorly defended Danaron Cliff and victory.


So the moral of that story kids, use traps... lots of traps. Not sure if that strategy would still work given this game has been patched since I played that map.

[Wheeler Dealer]

(Heroic) All the action was in the first week or so. On day 4 I spotted Orna headed for Blackforge. She wouldn't attack me there so I had to meet her in the open.

My strategy was to put all my eggs in one basket and meet the Empire heroes head on. After the first three it got boring. I usually don't like to finish a scenario until I've explored the whole map but there just wasn't anything challenging to do after the second week.