Academy Walkthrough Complete

[Queen Hera]

To eduhome & bo_nk who stated "When I pass the garrison where Raelag and Shadya stay behind and after the movie, I'm getting - green player defeated and you lost the game" - I'm sorry I don't know what suggestions to offer. I used Godric & approached Raelag first - so whether the Hero you use makes a difference I couldn't say.

[casdragon]

Yes, I agree with the others who feel the Academy campaign is a let down. It has 0 replayability in my opinion even though I couldn't get arcane omniscience. Banish is far more useful than what AO could ever be.

[shubigi]

"When I pass the garrison where Raelag and Shadya stay behind and after the movie, I'm getting - green player defeated and you lost the game."



thats prob because you have too many heroes-max is 7. so dismiss some extras so that raelag and shadya can join...worked for me!



i have a ridiculously large isabel army-just cant seem to defeat her.argh

[raptorsnz]

I found this misson hard. Isabel had around 168 champions, 35 arch angels, 350 crossbowmen. Is this the ridiculosly large army or the normal army?

[Pave]

Well, I´ve been having some trouble with this mission. I have no idea how long I would have to wait to outgrow Isabel....She has something like 2k of archers, 500 champions, some 100 archangels, not to mention 1,5k of squires and a cute band of gryphins...
Edited on Sat, Jul 21 2007, 08:52 by Pave

[Elvin]

I remember I had captured all towns and built angels and cavaliers everywhere Of course that was my first time and I did not have good dark magic.

[CatherineMcClarey]

Where is the 2nd Sylanna's Ancient? I've cleaned out most of the map (all except for the NW corner, where Blue and Green are), and found the one Sylanna's Ancient in the SE corner (as detailed in the walkthrough), but haven't yet found the other one.

[CatherineMcClarey]

I just noticed the screen shot detail at the end of the walkthrough, which shows a Sylanna's Ancient near one of those fairy ring things. Still haven't spotted it on my map yet, though; found a few fairy ring things, but none next to a Sylanna's Ancient. Help!

[CatherineMcClarey]

Aha! I just spotted it NE of town 9; look for one of those fairy ring things and then move your cursor around the surrounding trees (it'll change to the "rearing horse" cursor when you've found the right spot).

[Capt_Tripps]

I just finished this level (version 1.5). I never had to fight Raelag or Shadya (Isabel's army was a pushover). Of course I had a HUGE army. Given the cinematics, I was wondering if there are alternate ending to this level.

[stachnie]

I have played the campaign at Hard, v. 1.6. I had absolutely no problems in defeating Isabel and it was very easy to eliminate Teal and Tan. I wanted to develop heroes as much as possible (all stat boosts and Sylanna Ancients, Zehir and Raelag to lvl 30 etc.) so I managed to attack Isabel in the middle of Month 5. I had flagged almost all Haven dwellings so without any training my army was: 249 AA, almost 300 Paladins, more than 2.5k Marksmen etc. and the strongest Isabel's stacks were less than 30 Paladins and 11 AA (it seemed to be fixed since the beginning) so as you can imagine, it was a one-side battle.

[VAMPSVSZOUNDS]

Isabel in my game had 50+ Archangels,300+ paladins,2k squires, 200+ imp griffs and less than 70 marksmen/conscripts.

She actually has a Tear of Asha and trains/recruits.In Month 4( I put all heroes to visit stat boosters) I attacked Izzy with Findy.His stats:42 attack,35 or so defense,27 spellpower,30 knowledge,3 luck,0 morale,the build:see my post on Sylvan M5:with Nicky,plus Know ur enemy(+10% to Avenger chance)with 2k marksmen,100 paladins,50+ archangels,100 inquisitors,200+ imperial griffins and some squires.It was an one-sided battle.PS:Izzy was not the strongest knight,a hit from her arch angels killed only 10+ paladins.

[The Chosen One]

The first Sylvanna Ancient is in the bottomright.

The SECOND Sylvanna Ancient is slightly above the town Northcross (top left town). Use your right mouse button to find it. Its very hard to see.

[ShadowLiberal]

Make sure you do three things on this map, no matter how boring and simple it may be, it'll make the last mission a bit easier.



1) Get ALL the stat boosts here on all four of your heroes. Especially focus on the knowledge stat boosts for those with less then 300 mana, and attack and defense stats for Zehir & Godric (who have had less missions, and less stat boosts to visit then Findan and Raelag)



2) Get ALL spells you're missing in your spell books for any heroes. Zehir was missing Arcane Shield, and Godric Puppet Master for me, both got them from the 8 level 5 mage guilds I built.



3) Level up Zehir and Godric to level 30, or as close to it as possible. Prioritize Zehir first, because he gains skills still. Hope you get lucky enough to gain a knowledge point or two on Godric if you didn't take enlightenment & intelligence, as Godric will be running low on mana next mission.

[Wheeler Dealer]

1.6 Hard



I got Godric to 29, Findan and Zehir to 28. Realag came in at 30 + some points toward 31 and lost XP the first time I used him in a fight. Shadya came in at 29 and made 30 from a Tree.



I did find the treants handy for Zehir. When fighting ranged stacks I would send in only he treants and let Zehir kill 'em. Otherwise they kept picking off a few small creatures every skirmish.



I stated building up the necro towns as I captured them. I thought that Zehir commanding an undead army (he had Dark and Summoning Magic with all the spells) might be where I was headed. He wasn't using his Artificer Skills and there wouldn't be any morale penalties. But I ended up never buying a single undead creature.



I only built a level one mage guild in each city. I was pretty sure every hero had every spell he would ever use. Turns out Godric got Fireball from another hero, he had Magic Insight to go with his Expert Light magic.



Probably 80% of the battles were won on automatic without loss. I played quite a few just to see if I could save one or two creatures. Almost always I could win with no causalities.



I hit every stat boost with every hero and leveled up at the trees when there was nothing else left to do. I thank the programers for an easy to use coordinate system. (Hold down the control key). The only difficult battle I had was my first attempt at the center Haven city. I tried to take it with Findan using little more than his starting army. I backed up and brought in Godric who had probably double his starting Haven army by this time. He won with the loss of 11 marksmen.



I finished the last week of month 3 so I didn't experience the growth of Isabella's troops other have bemoaned.



Lots of opportunities to cut days off trips from here to there using Instant Travel and Town Portal. At first it seemed I would need gold from chests to build up my cities but in the end I should have taken only experience. I should have let Shadya and Raelag just do errands and avoided fighting or opening chests with them.



BTW, apparently under 1.6 you cannot hire heroes from the taverns to avoid a crash when you meet Raelag and Shadya.



For my my final battle I gave Zehir the Haven army and it was too easy. I had about 70 Archangels and 100 Paladins, 300 Inquisitors, 300 Imperial Griffins, 400 Squires and 900 marksmen. I was experimenting with spells I rarely use. It was the only battle where I didn't worry about casualties and I still took very few.



Maybe I will try again and try to get Zehir to 30 commanding a huge undead army!

[hprwhg12]

1.6 heroic not ToE



I notice that if you have built up your characters properly through out their campaigns that you should take your time. Go slow. Kill, pick-up, and visit everything. The longer you take the stronger neutral, teal, and tan get giving more exp. when defeated. The longer your outside hiring troop building sit the bigger army you can get at the end.



After you defeat teal, don't enter tan lands until all three have gone to every stat boost. Build mainly money and defense for Necro towns and save for Haven.This take time too. Tan will make some attacks.



Once that is done move on to tan and get every stat boost for all three before getting Raelag and since you have a sick amount of money and resources build up Haven first then Necro.



Once you get Raelag have him grab all stat boosts, while having Zehir, Godric, and Findan collect their respective troops from outside troop hire. They have a somewhat decent army mainly for show. But since you have 4 Haven towns obviously you will have a huge Haven army. No matter what Isobel has, 4 to 1 odds will take over very quickly. You probably have close to a million gold. so you can probably buy a huge army and win. I got Zehir to lvl cap just from fighting and two trees As for Findan and Godric . I had to choose which to lvl to 30 with final battle. took me exactly 6 months ending on month 6 day 1 week 1