Dungeon Mission 3: Impossible

[Gaidal Cain]

I'm at this map again at heroic. It's a pain. I've tried going for both towns on heroic, and the one time I managed to get Shadya to defeat her enemy, I mess up with Raelag thinking that a fight will be over if I kill all non-raised creatures, meaning I've left a stack of Blood Furies within striking range of my last stack. And of course that one gets high morale, and a lucky attack before I get to act, meaning that Raelag dies and I don't have a save. Sigh. Important lessons so far:

• Raelag is an idiot. What kind of a fool goes up against 7 towns, bringing only a 80 minotaurs, 30 blood maidens and 25 Assassins? I was running around with dozens of black dragons in the last map, dammit. Getting only slightly stronger (as in upgraded) starting troops would make this map less frustrating.
• Arcane Armor is very, very good if you have the time to get it up.
• Attacking an enemy while it's in a town with a fort but not more is considerably easier than doing it out in the field.
• The AI is annoyingly adept at sneaking in and capturing towns while I'm out claiming mines.
• Hard and heroic difficulties are messed up. I get more starting resources on heroic, but enemy heroes are slightly weaker on heroic.

A few new tries on heroic tomorrow, and if it doesn't work, I'll switch to normal just to be done with this damn map.

[ThunderTitan]

• Raelag is an idiot. What kind of a fool goes up against 7 towns, bringing only a 80 minotaurs, 30 blood maidens and 25 Assassins? I was running around with dozens of black dragons in the last map, dammit.

Like he's the only game character that does that.

Homeworld rules in this regard btw.

[Phate]

Seeing as map two gives you unlimited time to level up both your heroes while you doddle around looking for obelisks I didn't find map 3 very difficult once you knwo where to go to :/

I mean it's pretty obvious that the new hero will carry over, and i've had experience in the past of not leveling up heroes for the next mission.

Two heroes at the start of 3 with summon phoenix, that clone spell and empowered destructive magics and I fail to find real difficulty on map 3 once you know where the towns are.

It's a pity that moron raelag didnt think he needed those 30 black dragons I had from the last one

just my experience with it. . .

[Gaidal Cain]

I managed to finish it on heroic- though it was rather close at times. Noted an AI flaw that I had to exploit for early fights: the AI really dislikes to make an attack that will give a more powerful stack access to their stacks. This means that by placing a big stack of melee creatures in a corner, surronded by single-unit stacks, all ranged attacks will be directed at the big stack, and melee units just move back and forth in fron of the stacks. This isn't 100% waterproof, but it's good enough to give you time to summon a phoenix and defeat the enemy with it.

[vdupuy]

I got to this level by finishing every previous map on Heroic. I maxed out both heroes in the previous map.

I'm having a real hard time.

I beat the first enemy hero on day one when he gets his army in the first castle and attacks me, but he does kill part of my army. Then I take the castle, but I typically don't make it to week 2. Either my hero outside the castle gets killed or the one in the castle. Either way its crazy!

Anyone has a more detailed plan on how to survive week 2?

Thanks!

[Gaidal Cain]

Playing on heroic, I captured both castles in the starting area during the first four days. Doing it pretty much required Expert Summoning and Dark Magic on Shadya, coupled with Puppet Master, Conjure Phoenix and Arcane Armor (this is possible through using the two banks that teaches spells in the previous map). Shadya got 50 Minotaurs, Raelag the rest of the creatures. See my post above for the AI bug I abused with Shadya so that she could win without many losses.

After taking the towns, you need to take hold of basic resource mines as soon as you can - ore in particular might come in short. Hydras are a good creature to use for their durability. After the initial fights, there was only one I had significant trouble with- Lethos (Poison Master) showed up on day 7, week 2. I had to chain all my creatures to Shadya's town to be able to defeat him, and even then it was close- his special is really annoying with the small armies and his high level. After that, the AI ran out of dungeon heroes and the rest was easy.

Some other tips:
Keep plenty of saves to go back to if something unexpected happens. If I hadn't done this, I couldn't have gotten the crucial reinforcements to Shadya in time.

If you're having trouble with a battle, try splitting of one lowlevel creature in a stack and don't place it on the tactical map. Then you can use Raise Dead without having to keep track so that there's always a surviving creature.

Remember that you can affect the random number generator by splitting oyour stacks or not placing some of them on the battlefield. This comes in handy if you absulutely must have a luck roll to get double damage, for example.

[vdupuy]

thanks for the help!

2 quick ones: You take one town with Raylen and one with Shadya?

As far as the AI glitch strategy, I've tried it a few times but typically the enemy has sent a fireball/circle of winter my way, killing all those 1-unit stacks...

[Gaidal Cain]

You take one town with Raylen and one with Shadya?

Yep. Perhaps possible to only use one if you go for the westernmost one first.

As far as the AI glitch strategy, I've tried it a few times but typically the enemy has sent a fireball/circle of winter my way, killing all those 1-unit stacks...

I was surprised it didn't do it for me, actually. It was moreinterested in killing the one strong stack. Guess it depends on the relative strength of the stacks.

[NuWorld]

Huh, I just started this map yesterday. 4 weeks are gone now and I think I should go out. I took both towns early on, gave all troops to Raelag and conquered the eastern town, then gave all troops to Shayda and conquered the northern town. Then Shayda kicked some Inferno butt with ease. Now, I split the troops between heroes and each took care of himself. I recruited couple of defeated warlocks to pick up resources so main heroes wouldn't waste precious movement on that.

Week 1: built capitol and all dwellings except dragons.
Week 2: upgraded dwellings for scouts, minotaurs, maidens and built citadels and castles.
Week 3: upgraded raiders dwelling and built dragon spires.
Week 4: built mage guild, altar of the elements and ritual pits.

Those weekly fights with other warlocks went pretty good, I was mainly loosing low level units, so I will outnumber opposing heroes with hydras, minotaurs, riders and dragons. On previous map, I didn't manage to get expert Destructive Magic with Raelag, so no meteors or implosion, but I mastered Ice and Storms and finally got Warlock's Luck, since I'm expert Luck too I hope to see double damge spells more often Raelag is a Scholar too, so they exchanged some missing spells. Shayda is powerfull spell caster already, both lvl20.

Now I plan to go out with Raelag with some 50 assassins, 50 furies, 50 minotaur guards, 30 grim raiders, 10 witches, 15 hydras and 5 dragons, should be enough for initial burst, me thinks

I see it's cats and mice out there, so I would appreciate an advice, as a general strategy, is it better to go out with both Raelag and Shayda at once, or one now, one like couple of weeks later?
TIA

[Gaidal Cain]

I see it's cats and mice out there, so I would appreciate an advice, as a general strategy, is it better to go out with both Raelag and Shayda at once, or one now, one like couple of weeks later?
TIA

You'll get attacked by more Demon Heroes as you capture more towns, so you should keep at least one strong hero home to ward them off- either Shadya or a defeated dungeon hero.

[NuWorld]

You'll get attacked by more Demon Heroes as you capture more towns, so you should keep at least one strong hero home to ward them off- either Shadya or a defeated dungeon hero.

Thanks for the tip. Just finished the map yesterday, there was hardly any real threat, easy battles, although it took me almost 3 months to catch all the bastards. Although AI had 7 towns, they obviously didn't group forces on a single hero, that could cause some serious trouble. Instead, I took the southern town first and then picked them off 1 by 1 as they tried to reach monoliths leading to my cavern. Shadya lost just a few dragons in 3 fights with Inferno guys.

[DaemianLucifer]

A chalenging map,true,but not imposible(inferno was harder).Hard difficulty.Raelag has tactics,master of ice and lucky spells,expert logistics with teleport assault.Shadya has empowered spells expert destruction with all three masteries,and expert dark with all three masteries.Im chasing sorcery with her now.

Split the troops evenly(minos with shadya,assasins with raleag)and went for the towns.Took the towns on day two and built the capitol in the western one.Then I claimed all the mines and sent raleag to the western portal on week two,while shadya stays and combats the enemy.Took the western town on end of week two,and beaten quite a bunch of enemy heroes.Took the middle western town,then the NW one.That was end of month one.Then sent shadya to take the middle town(using the second portal),while raleag improves himself a bit with neutrals.From now on its just maxing my heroes since I have two invincible armies with heroes that have empowered spells and over 150 spell points.

[NuWorld]

I couldn't cap both of them, Raelag capped at 26 somewhere towards the end but Shayda ended at 24 although I killed everything that moved and they were the only heroes fighting. Don't forget to visit islands for skill improvements

[DaemianLucifer]

I couldn't cap both of them, Raelag capped at 26 somewhere towards the end but Shayda ended at 24 although I killed everything that moved and they were the only heroes fighting. Don't forget to visit islands for skill improvements

Im capping shadya now.level 22 and loads of boxes to go.Plus the hero is afraid to leave the town(raleag is on his doorstep ),so Ill get a bit of xp from him as well.

[Gaidal Cain]

Maxing Shadya is pointless. You don't want to be using her for fighting ever again after that map...

[DaemianLucifer]

It was kinda allong the way,so I did it anyway.Im so close to reaching the famous poetry campaign,I cant wait!(thats why playing warlock took me almost 2 weeks )

[Gaidal Cain]

3 maps left until you get there (No poetry in map 1. Though map 4 and 5 of dungeon are short).