To win, you must locate and flag all 7 Griffin Towers. Your choices for starting bonus are: Golden Bow, Lion's Shield of Courage, or Endless Sack of Gold

Click on a map to see a larger version.

Green - Friendly Town
Red - Enemy Town
Grey - Neutral Town
Yellow - Underground Passage

A# - Allied Towns
O# - Opponent Towns
N# - Neutral Towns
E# - Exits to the other level
S# - Seer (a) and the location of the item (b)
G# - Guard Tents (a) and the location of the Guard Tower (b)

The Lion's Shield of Courage will give the hero wielding it +4 to all attributes and is much more valuable than the other two choices so pick this and give it to the might hero that you built up in the last two maps. You don't need the Endless Sack of Gold because there are so many towns that will be under your command that don't produce troops. The Golden Bow is a great artifact but the Lion's Shield of Courage is simply better.

This is another map where the enemy starts out with more towns than you and a bigger space to run around in. The best tactic is to take out the Orange enemy's towns which are underground. This is where taking the time to build up your heroes in the previous maps pay off.

Combine all of the starting troops and put them on your two strongest heroes. Have one hero take the purple path, take over O1, and continue to E1. Have the other hero follow the orange path, take over O2, and continue to E2. It doesn't matter in what order you take over O3, O4, and O5 but make sure you hold them for a week and prevent the Orange heroes from taking over any other town. There is a well by E2 so you can refill your magic points as you're chasing down an errant Orange hero. Orange can be defeated in week 2 if you move fast and if your two main heroes are strong enough to not need any additional troops.

Now you can relax with most of the threat eliminated. There is the Tan enemy but they are weak don't send out heroes often. However, don't rush to take out the last two Tan castles since they are protected by extremely strong ambushes which consist of 60 Familiars, 50 Infernal Trogs, 30 Harpy Hags, 30 Magogs, 20 Cerebri, 20 Evil Eyes, and 5 Scorpicores or 5 Efreet Sultans. I suggest not attempting this until you're ready to flag the Griffin Towers near the end of the map. The benefit to taking over the two Tan castles is that you get rid of two very strong stationary Tan heroes that are found below G3a and G3b.

Flag the mines and build up all of your castles so you can get as many troops as possible to fight the garrison troops that protect access to the Griffin Towers. You'll definitely have the gold (especially if you build the City Hall in every town you conqured) and there are so many resources available that you shouldn't run out.

There are two Seer quests that require you to visit a Keymaster Tent in order to get past the Border Guards that prevent access to the artifacts that the Seers want. G1a corresponds with G1b and you find the Bird of Perception at S1b that you take to S1a for Expert Eagle Eye. G2a corresponds with G2b and you find the Ladybird of Luck at S2b that you take to S2a for 50 Griffins. There really is no need to get the Expert Eagle Eye as there are no heroes to learn spells from but the 50 Griffins are very valuable.

Once you have enough creatures, put them on your best heroes and have them defeat the garrison troops and flag the Griffin Towers. You'll need to go to the KeyMaster Tent at G3a to open the Border Guard at G3b to get access to three Griffin Cliffs. The battles shouldn't be very tough as your main heroes will have enough magic power to defeat most of the enemies quickly.

Last Update: February 12, 2002

Copyright © 2000 - 2001 Rocco J Carello