Specter of Power → Poison Fit for a King

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Grail Quest
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Specter of Power → Poison Fit for a King

Unread postby Grail Quest » 30 Jul 2007, 14:48

If you would like to take a look at the original page visit this link:
https://www.celestialheavens.com/282

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Grail Quest
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Specter of Power → Poison Fit for a King

Unread postby Grail Quest » 30 Jul 2007, 14:48

A single stack of 15-20 Vampire Lords can, on their own, kill many neutral stacks as they reanimate when they drain life from enemies they attack. In this way, you can reserve your forces for a big push later, although you will likely have a severe cash shortage and not be able to buy all the creatures you make. Further, the enemy will already have mustered an incredibly huge army (such as 400+ marksmen!), so it's really pointless. There are also no peasants to be seen, contrary to the intro movie, as they've all been cleared by the Knights.

It may have been scripted (is it even possible?) that the enemy will not do more than clear your border guard. I saw them clear the border guard but not move into my territory; instead, on a few occasions, they turned back.

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Ansive
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Specter of Power → Poison Fit for a King

Unread postby Ansive » 04 Feb 2009, 00:24

First time I started the map on impossible... the enemy broke through the garrison under a month and crushed me.



Second try on expert I was a little lucky and had time to clear the entire undead side of the map. I built all the creature dwelling in the lower city and a town hall in the upper city in the first week. This way I was able to gather a decent army. In about month 3 I started my attack. I managed to beat the heroes since they were about as strong as Sandro. Armies were pretty huge but so were mine.



I wonder how long into the game events were scripted... in month 3 Sandro was having dreams of Ethric and the 4 heroes that defeated him...

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Specter of Power → Poison Fit for a King

Unread postby UndeadHalfOrc » 30 Mar 2009, 18:45

I just found out (the hard way) that there is a (completely undocumented!) 4 month limit to finish this scenario. Yeah, yeah, I could have finished it 2-1/2 months into it, but I wanted to buff every hero I had as much as I could. Thankfully I had an earlier save 2 weeks before the limit so I rushed Sandro in the take the castle, just in time.

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Specter of Power → Poison Fit for a King

Unread postby lexaeus » 14 May 2010, 12:27

up to this day i can't beat this campaign on the impossible difficulty level.

i have to rush through the first level and quickly capture haart castle (the enemy heroes are always too strong. starting with no ressources is just painful) to win it. the second level is still beatable, but the third one is when i notice how badly you need to train sandro. since i had to skip most of the status-buffing locations, i stand no chance against melodia. (just a side note: i don't want to use fly or dimension portal at all to win).

unfortunately there is no video showing how to beat spectre of power on impossible...

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Specter of Power → Poison Fit for a King

Unread postby Monkey » 14 May 2012, 15:38

I've just finished this level on Impossible...It was hard. The enemy broke through the Gates at the end of the 1 Month, but i could collect creatures from the next week, so he ran away. and as i took his second castle, he tried to siege it with an anormous army. But after i broke his Ballista, he could only use his griffons and shooters. So i could win this battle.

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Specter of Power → Poison Fit for a King

Unread postby demarubem » 30 Jun 2012, 23:24

i wonder, when do you play this campaign ? i just finished the unholly aliance killed sandro .... and that was over for whole the shadow of death

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Specter of Power → Poison Fit for a King

Unread postby vil2 » 01 Aug 2013, 13:58

This mission is so frustrating ; after a nice climax in the former campaign, with excellent heroes, we find Sandro back, level 1, with no stats. The beginning of the mission is so boring...Why the hell did not they put a hi-level campaign ? This would have been so much better imo.

Other than that, the walkthrough worked well, I attacked on week 6 and wiped them, while advoiding 2 enemy heroes. Just be sure to tag all the Wood and Ore mines in the first days, otherwise you'll not be able to build fast enough.

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Specter of Power → Poison Fit for a King

Unread postby hirohn » 22 Sep 2014, 05:39

I've just replayed this on impossible and found out that there are some important things that would aid you a lot in beating this map easily:



+ Early:

- The 3 vampire lords and 10 wraiths are crucial to slay neutral stacks, try to keep them all intact by luring neutrals and taking advantage of obstacles on the battle field.

- Dump the walking deads for more movement, sadly you can't get rid of the skellies.

- Use secondary heroes to kill neutral stacks which you can't drain life from (gargoyles) using the walking deads+zombies from above.

- The refugee camps! Get 2 heroes there by the beginning of each week, the upgraded tier-7 creatures will help you defeating neutrals without casualties. I got 1 archdevil, 1 ghost dragon, 2 black knights. Also, you can always load the game on day 7 and end turn for new random recruits.



+ First month:

- Prioritize estate in A2 and A3, use A1 for gold and resource silo.

- Clear out the area above A2, then get the buckler, avoid losses.

- When they penetrate through the garrison, command the garrison troops to focus on the marksmen. Then you can confront him with Sandro even outside A3. Expect some losses but make sure the vampire lords stay intact.

- Choose your secondary heroes to bring to the next map, wisdom is crucial, they don't have to be necromancers, though. I got Sephinroth (Dungeon) for the +1 crystal (I'm an economist), Aislinn (Necro) for the meteor shower to clear hard neutral stacks, Terek (Stronghold) for the tactics but I was unlucky my Terek didn't get Earth as secondary.



+ The invasion:

- Secure O2a first since it's easier to defend.

- Expect them to launch a hard attack to reclaim O2a, stay inside the castle and defend, only attack with vampire lords, liches and marksmen.

- Use this chance to take over O1a or run like hell back to A2 and A3 since other heroes will invade them. In my case the Cover of Darkness helped a lot.



+ Cleaning up:

- Bring everyone to level 10 by killing neutral stacks, trees of knowledge and freshly recruited heroes swarming out of O4a every week. In my case I had to camp Sandro between O1a and O4a, far enough not to scare them and use my secondary heroes to capture the saw mill and ore pit to lure them out.

- Upgrade all mage guilds and learn all the spells. I got town portal from O3a and expert/advanced Earth on 3/4 of my heroes which was really nice. This will really help in the next maps since you can expand really fast in all directions, every hero can be used to flag mines and siege castles while Sandro concentrates on his main task, which is the blitzkrieg tactics, I never had to replenish troops for Sandro until very late (keywords: Summon Earth + Animate Dead) in the following map which I even had to trade gold for other resources in order not to win so fast while pampering my heroes.





In my opinion the REFUGEE CAMPS were the key to this map.

Thheo
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Re: Specter of Power → Poison Fit for a King

Unread postby Thheo » 21 Mar 2022, 20:03

I'm just now gonna find out how this goes for the next levels, but beating this one with expert berserk(i restarted the map until i got fire magic in the witch hut and scouted which mage guild had berserk) was very satisfying . Probably one of the only mission where fire magic is good.

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Re: Specter of Power → Poison Fit for a King

Unread postby DeusX » 03 Feb 2024, 01:23

To add onto @hirohns excellent post regarding clearing this on Impossible:

No matter how good you play you simply cannot tackle their strongest hero head on, or even in a defense. At least I doubt it.
Probably only if you go for a fire magic route with berserk, other than that I don't see how it can be done.

Even if you keep the enemy from invading you with tower of darkness you're never going accumulate enough forces to contend head on with them.

It's important to note that there are no locked magics on this map. You can get Dimension Door and Fly.
It's not fun but I really suggest farming for fly/dimension door/rise the dead/town portal and possibly implosion too before even attempting the first mission.
Getting logistics (your best bet is from one of the huts) really helps as well.

Remember that the objective isn't to eliminate the enemy but to capture Haart's Castle, which to be fair they always leave pretty heavily guarded so you will need a decent amount of vampires/liches and possibly dread knights.

however if you go straight for the objective it's going to be hard to level 3 more heroes properly and if you don't do that you'll make the second and third map much harder than they need to be.

What worked well for me was make sure I had at least advanced wisdom and earth magic by the time I invaded the enemy, with town portal as well of course. Initally move as fast as possible, so only carry vampire lords for maximum movement. Try to make sure their strongest hero is somewhere on the left side of the map when you invade and then go straighit for the bottom right town.

If you're not interested in getting 3 more heroes to level 10 you can just lure their roaming hero who carries the bulk of their army and head straight for Haart's Castle when you have enough forces to secure the victory.

However if you do want to prepare as much as possible for the rest of the campaign you will have to beat their strongest hero and then proceed to leveling secondary heroes on the fodder they send you each week.

Doing this will most likely add a couple of months until victory compared to just rushing it though.

What I did to beat their strongest hero was to simply be much quicker than them. I kept moving between their towns, trying to secure all 3 except Haart's Castle before the start of a new week, I buy out as many troops as possible and funnel them to one town while slowly building a Haven army. Money is a bit tight but you only have to spend gold on liches and vampire lords. Possibly only vamp lords but I went for both.
With this tactic you limit their weekly creature gain to 1-2 towns only instead of 4, while you keep amassing more vampire lords.
Eventually you do get strong enough to tackle their strongest hero who has been chasing you around for weeks barely getting any more troops since you started your invasion.
I ended up not even using all the haven troops I kept buying, besides Arch Angels to gain more movement speed and for my alt heroes to level with.
But the most important part is to control as many towns as possible and buy out the troops so the enemy can't buy them whenever he retakes a town.
leaving a small amount of troops in each town is pretty neat too because they'll lose 10-20 marksmen retaking the town.

A neat trick to maximize daily movement points for Sandro is to get a hold of Arch Angels, try to park Sandro in a town at the end of each turn and put any vampire lords and/or liches inside the town garrison, only keeping angels on sandro, then end your turn. That way you'll always start the day with max movement. Then simply put your necro troops on Sandro before moving out again.

IIRC I managed to beat the map sometime on month 4 with Sandro and 3 more Heroes being level 10. 3 magic and 1 might/semi magic hero, with town portal/fly/DD/RtD.
While I could've beat the map in middle of the second month if I had decided not to prepare 3 more heroes and beat the enemy completely.


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