Warlords: Battlecry
Unofficial Strategy Guide and FAQ
by Kasey Chang
released January 16, 2003
0 Introduction
This section is for "what the FAQ is about" and things like
that. Feel free to skip this section.
If you like the FAQ, please send me a dollar. :-) See [0.3]
This FAQ is primarily about the single player game, though
it has some references to the multiplayer game. However, I
don't much on the multiplayer aspect as there is a MUCH more
comprehensive guide to it, "Tomes of Knowledge", that covers
the stuff much better than I can.
0.1 A WORD FROM THE AUTHOR
I don't see a FAQ for Warlords: Battlecry, so here's my
version. There is a mutliplayer guide (Tome of Knowledge),
and a Gamespot (tm) guide, but no FAQ.
This is a FAQ, NOT a manual. You probably will not be able
to learn how to play the game with this document.
This USG only covers the PC version since that's the only
version that I have (and existed).
Some of you may recognize my name as the editor for the XCOM
and XCOM2: TFTD FAQ's, among others.
0.2 TERMS OF DISTRIBUTION
This document is copyrighted by Kuo-Sheng "Kasey" Chang (c)
2003, all rights reserved excepted as noted above in the
disclaimer section.
This document is available FREE of charge subjected to the
following conditions:
1)This notice and author's name must accompany all copies
of this document: "Warlords: Battlecry Unofficial
Strategy Guide and FAQ" is copyrighted (c) 2003 by Kasey
K.S. Chang, all rights reserved except as noted in the
disclaimer."
2)This document must NOT be modified in any form or manner
without prior permission of the author with the following
exception: if you wish to convert this document to a
different file format or archive format, with no change
to the content, then no permission is needed.
2a) In case you can't read, that means TXT only. No
banners, no HTML borders, no cutting up into multiple
pages to get you more banner hits, and esp. no adding
your site name to the site list. [Small exception: a
"small" toolbar with no banners embedded is okay. See IGN
or Neoseeker for examples.]
3)No charge other than "reasonable" compensation should
charged for its distribution. Free is preferred, of
course. Sale of this information is expressly prohibited.
If you see any one selling this guide, contact me (see
below).
4)If you used material from this, PLEASE ACKNOWLEDGE the
source, else it is plagiarism.
5)The author hereby grants all games-related websites the
right to archive and link to this document to share among
the game fandom, provided that all above restrictions are
followed.
Sidenote: The above conditions are known as a statutory
contract. If you meet them, then you are entitled to the
rights I give you in 5), i.e. archive and display this
document on your website. If you don't follow them, then
you did not meet the statutory contract conditions, and
therefore you have no right to display this document. If
you do so, then you are infringing upon my copyright.
This section was added for any websites that don't seem
to understand this.
For the gamers: You are under NO obligation to send me
ANY compensation. However, I do ask for a VOLUNTARY
contribution of one (1) US Dollar if you live in the
United States, and if you believe this guide helped your
game. If you choose to do so, please make your US$1.00
check or $1.00 worth of US stamps to "Kuo-Sheng Chang",
and send it to "2220 Turk Blvd. #6, San Francisco, CA
94118 USA".
If you don't live in the US, please send me some local
stamps. I collect stamps too.
0.3 VOLUNTARY CONTRIBUTION
Gamers who read this guide are under NO obligation to send
me ANY compensation.
However, a VOLUNTARY contribution of one (1) US Dollar would
be very appreciated.
If you choose to do so, please make your US$1.00 check or
$1.00 worth of stamps to "Kuo-Sheng Chang", and send it to
"2220 Turk Blvd. #6, San Francisco, CA 94118 USA".
If you don't live in the US, please send me some local
stamps. I collect stamps too.
For the record, out of ALL the FAQs I wrote (33 at least
count) over the past six years, I've received exactly 7
dollars and 2 sets of stamps, as of release of this guide.
So I'm NOT making any money off these guides, folks.
0.4 HOW AND WHEN TO CONTACT ME
PLEASE let me know if there's a confusing or missing remark,
mistakes, and thereof... If you find a question about this
game that is not covered in the USG, e-mail it to me at the
address specified below. I'll try to answer it and include
it in the next update.
Please do NOT write me for technical support. That is the
job of the publisher.
Please do NOT ask me to send you a list of controls, the
manual, etc. If you borrowed the game without borrowing the
manual, blame your own stupidity. If you bought the game
without a manual, blame your own stupidity. If you copied
the game without copying the manual, you're not only scum,
but STUPID scum.
Please do NOT ask me to answer questions that have already
answered in this FAQ/guide. It makes you REALLY idiotic.
I will NOT answer stupid questions like the ones above
unless I'm in a really good mood. If you send questions like
that, do NOT expect a reply.
The address below is spelled out phonetically so spammers
can't use spambots on it:
Kilo-Sierra-Charlie-Hotel-Alpha-November-Golf-Seven-Seven AT
Yankee-Alpha-Hotel-Oscar-Oscar DOT Charlie-Oscar-Mike
To decipher this, simply read the first letter off each word
except for the numbers and the punctuation. This is
"military phonetics" or "aeronautical phonetics" in case
you're wondering.
This document was produced on Microsoft Word 97. Some
editing was done with Editpad (editpadclassic.com).
0.5 THE AUTHOR
I am just a game player who decided to write my own FAQs
when the ones I find don't cover what I want to see. Lots
of people like what I did, so I kept doing it.
Previously, I've written Unofficial Strategy Guides (USGs)
for XCOM, XCOM2:TFTD, Wing Commander, Wing Commander 2, Wing
Commander 3, Wing Commander 4, Privateer, Spycraft, 688(I)
Hunter/Killer. Mechwarrior 3, MW3 Expansion Pack,
Mechwarrior 4, Mechwarrior 4: Black Knight, Need for Speed:
Porsche Unleashed, The Sting!, Terranova, Fallout Tactics,
Starfleet Command Volume II, DS9: The Fallen, DS9: Dominion
War, Driver, and a few more.
To contact me, see 0.4 above.
0.6 DISCLAIMER / COPYRIGHT INFORMATION
Warlords: Battlecry was published by SSI (Strategic
Simulations Inc.), part of Mindscape and "The Learning
Company". It was created by SSG (Strategic Studies Group)
of Australia.
This USG is not endorsed or authorized by ANY of the
companies mentioned above. There is an official strategy
guide published by PrimaGames (primagames.com)
The information compiled in this USG has been gathered
independently through the author's efforts except where
noted otherwise. Some analysis and information are excerpts
taken from "WBC Community Tome of Knowledge".
This document is based on the V1.04b patch, and thus
information listed here may NOT apply fully to earlier
versions.
The campaign walkthru was written with the game difficulty
setting at "easy". It can be assumed that enemy will attack
earlier with more force and build up faster if you play at
"medium" or "hard" difficulty levels.
0.7 HISTORY
16-JAN-2003 Initial release
1 Warlords: Battlecry General Info
1.1 THE MOST FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
Q: Can you send me the game (or portions thereof)?
A: No.
Q: Can you send me the manual (or portions thereof)?
A: No.
Q: Can you tell me how to play the game?
A: Read the manual.
Q: Can you help me get the game working?
A: That's the publisher's job, isn't it?
Q: How about a patch?
A: There is one official patch: V1.01. There are three
unofficial patches: V1.02, V1.03, and V1.04b. There is an
"all-in-one" patch that will patch the original V1.00
release all the way up to V1.04b. While also released by
SSG, the unofficial patches are considered "beta" and are
NOT supported. You can download those from the SSG website
below. There is also a main EXE patch which allows custom
scenarios to have introduction speech as well.
Q: How about Expansion Packs? More missions? User-created
missions and campaigns?
A: You can download extra missions from SSG's webiste at
http://www.ssg.com/au/download.htm. There is no expansion
pack.
Q: How about a sequel?
A: Warlords: Battlecry 2 is already out.
Q: Is WBC compatible with Win2K and/or WinXP?
A: Unknown. It may depend on the number of hotfixes and such
applied. Some people have luck, others don't.
Q: Can I play any race other than human in the campaign?
A: Unfortunately, no. There are some hacks that allow you to
put in a non-human hero. However, you WILL command more than
just humans in the campaign.
Q: What network modes does WBC support?
A: IPX, TCP/IP (MPlayer, Gamespy, Direct IP), and Modem.
Q: Why is the game telling me "You have too many men"?
A: You have reached your army limit. Look on upper left hand
corner of the screen. That shows your army limit and
capacity used. If you have reached your limit, the building
still stop at 99% and the queue gets "stuck".
1.2 WARLORDS SERIES HISTORY
Warlords franchise is one of the oldest names in fantasy
strategy gaming, even older than the original Warcraft from
Blizzard. It defined turn-based fantasy strategy as a
computer game genre overall. There has been 3 Warlords
titles, with the fourth due sometime in 2003.
Warlords: Battlecry took the mechanics of the game, balanced
it for real-time gameplay, added many innovations, and
produced a modern classic.
1.3 WBC HARDWARE REQUIREMENTS
Excerpt from the README file:
Minimum Specification
Pentium 233 or equivalent
64MB of RAM
Windows 95/98 (Windows NT and Windows 2000 are not
officially supported)
Direct X 7
For 56K modem games, we require at least 33.6K connection to
an ISP to access the Internet. Warlords Battlecry games
which have one or more players who have less than this
connection speed may expEyrience extreme lags,
synchronization problems and/or game dropouts.
CD Requirements
You must have the CD in your drive to play either single
player or to host a multiplayer game. You must also have
the CD in the drive if you are hosting OR joining a game
from a lobby (such as MPlayer)
Without the CD in the drive all you will able to do is to
join multiplayer games.
NOTE: Some of the unsupported "beta" patches removes the CD
requirement.
NOTE: The game is rather small. Even with the movies, it
takes up
1.4 HOW DOES THE GAME PLAY?
WBC is basically a fantasy real-time strategy game, albeit
with heroes. As your "personal avatar", he or she has
special abilities that can affect the course of battle, and
you can develop him/her in RPG fashion by modifying their
attributes, giving him/her new skills, and such...
Think of this game as the prequel to Warcraft 3 and you
won't be too far off. Almost all features in Warcraft 3 can
be found in some primitive form here, including heroes,
learning experience over multiple battles, branching
campaign, retinue (units that you can keep from one battle
to another), decent story, lots of units, multiple sides,
developing heroes where different branches offer different
capabilities, and so on.
1.5 BUGS AND FIXES
Those using V1.04 may encounter a sound bug. There is a fix
available at the SSG website.
The patches rebalanced the units by adding or subtracting
slightly the cost, the combat effectiveness, and so on. For
a full list of changes, please see the README file.
1.6 EXPANSION PACKS? SEQUELS? RELATED TITLES?
There is no expansion pack for WBC.
There is a sequel to WBC called Warlords: Battlecry 2.
Related title would be the older Warlords sEyries, which is
turn-based fantasy combat.
Warlords IV is in design and may appear sometime in 2003.
1.7 NOTES ON ORGANIZATION
This guide is organized as similar to the actual manual as
possible, mainly acting as a supplement.
After all the areas of the manual have been covered, there
will be a full analysis of each and every unit available,
plus all the spells, and such.
The finally, there will be the campaign walkthru, and
miscellaneous stuff.
2 Armies
This section explains additional items about the armies, and
adds tips as well. .
2.1 PRODUCING ARMIES
TIP: Army production (actually, ANY production, including
"skills" which are really upgrades) can be queued beyond the
5 shown onscreen. Actual limit is not known, though I've
queued at least 15 before. Usually you should keep the queue
to less than 10 items.
NOTE: Only the first five items can be REMOVED from the
queue.
NOTE: To remove queued items, click on the item in the
queue. Thus, only the first 5 items can be removed.
TIP: It is better to remove items from the queue that is NOT
being worked on (i.e. don't remove the first item). If you
remove the first item, you lose any progress that's been
done.
TIP: All production buildings should have a rally point set,
and changed as you see fit.
TIP: Set rally points to somewhere the units can be out of
the way and be useful. Just outside the camp "entrance" is
good.
TIP: You can set the rally point to be a building. If you
set the rally point to be a defense tower, then the units
will enter the tower.
2.2 ARMY LIMIT
TIP: You can SEE the army limit via that little indicator on
the upper left, which shows used capacity versus total
capacity. Most units count as 1 against the limit. Some
units, like cavalry, count as 2, and so on. Dragons, giants,
etc. count as 4.
TIP: Convert enemy buildings when you can. While they can't
produce things (unless you can build that structure), they
do add toward your army limit, and you don't need to spend
resources and time to build them.
TIP: Orcs can build orc huts, which are cheap and adds to
their army limits. Undead can build gravestones, which also
adds to the army total.
NOTE: You get a voice warning about "too many units" when
you're about to exceed the limit. Your production of new
units will stop, but the queue remains intact. The
production stops at 99% and stays there until you free up
enough unit limits.
TIP: Watch the limit, and build new capacity before it's too
late. Build additional level 1 keeps to increase the limit,
or anything else that's cheap.
NOTE: Sheep counts against army limit, so don't overbuild,
esp. if playing minotaurs.
2.3 ARMIES AND MEDALS
TIP: Killing heroes and buildings gain more points than
killing enemy units. See manual for details on what can be
gained.
TIP: Units with more experience are more effective in
fighting, and should be preserved as much as possible. They
gain more hit points and have more combat ratings.
TIP: With higher "training" skill, not only do you get more
XP for your hero, but the units being produced also start
with more XP (instead of zero). This has the effect of
making ALL your armies stronger.
TIP: If you want a lot of XP's for a specific unit, attack
enemy building until the building is ALMOST dead, pull the
armies away, then send in one unit to deliver the coup-de-
grace (final hit). That unit will get the kill credit and
the XP.
NOTE: Lower level units (less than level 5) must gain high
experience (level 2 or 3, to be exact) by the end of the
scenario to join your retinue. Other "generals" may appear
randomly with no experience.
2.4 GENERALS AND ALLIES
NOTE: Your retinue may swell with generals from other races.
For example, a human hero can get Moonguard, Reaver, Dryad,
and more in addition to the 3 types of Mages that usually
appear for humans.
NOTE: Allies are basically special "Neutral" units, like
Elementals, Archons, and Daemons. They can't convert or
command, but they are REALLY fierce in battle. Archons and
such have combat ratings in the mid-teens, and do like 30-50
damage per hit. Preserve them and they can REALLY help you
in battle.
TIP: Keep those generals that can convert buildings (see
manual). They can go out and convert those places instead of
your hero taking the risk.
TIP: Don't keep TOO many high value units, as you don't have
enough "keep points" to take them into battle.
2.5 RESEARCHING SKILLS
TIP: Skills cost resources to research, and once researched,
improve ALL your army units (including those in production
or already produced). Usually, the researched skills are
worth it if you got the resources to spare and don't need
the building to crank out more units (at least not
temporarily).
NOTE: Sometimes you'll see me calling these "upgrades"
instead of "skills". To clarify, these are the stuff you pay
for at a building, like "Weaponsmith" at the Smithy.
TIP: It is possible to build MORE THAN ONE of the buildings
and have them conduct different researches at the same time,
or have one produce units and the other do research. That
depends on how much resources you have. In fact, you should
make two (or more) buildings or more of the same time and
use them together.
TIP: Human's "Jack of All Trades" hero skill means all
research skills gets 25% discount, which can be quite
significant.
TIP: Merchant skill also affects the amount of resources
needed for research, as well as other stuff.
3 Heroes
3.1 STATISTICS AND SKILLS
NOTE: AP = ability point. You win those after gaining a
level after level 3, to improve your hero, such as
statistic, skill, spells, or special abilities. How much you
get depends on your level, training skill, and your level of
victory in the battle.
NOTE: A full list of how your hero's statistics and skills
are on page 29 of the manual, and will not be repeated here.
TIP: To view full stats of your hero, right-click the hero's
portrait while on the hero selection screen or while in
battle.
NOTE: See how "Training" is affected by ST+IQ? So gains in
ST or IQ will improve the amount of AP and XP you receive
from each battle. Similar changes in other statistics will
affect other skills.
ANALYSIS: When you get AP, you can enhance Statistics for 5
or 6 APs depending on the skill, or enhance Skills for 1 AP.
But how many skills does each Statistic actually affect?
Here's a little chart:
Statistic Skills Affected by Increase
Strength Combat (2x), Health, Training, Conversion
Intellige Command, Magery (2x), Resistance, Training
nce
Dexterity Health, Speed (2x), Morale, Resistance
Charisma Command, Morale, Conversion, Merchant (2x)
NOTE: You can use AP enhance the skills. However, it is not
quite as cost effective after a while. While the first pt
cost 1 AP, the second pt cost 2 AP, and so on.
Depending on which profession and specialty you picked,
different parts of your statistic are designated as primary,
secondary, and tertiary. Primary stats can be increased for
slightly less cost in AP than secondary and tertiary stats.
For exact deals, please see "Tomes of Knowledge" appendix.
TIP: Most people agree, it is best to increase "training",
until rating 19 or 25, so you and your armies gets bonus.
3.2 CASTING SKILL
NOTE: the skill level you have in that magic sphere gives
you the "chance" of success. This is called the "casting
skill". For higher level spells, there's a "penalty" in
casting.
For example, if your casting skill is 10 in Alchemy, and a
level 4 spell "Create Artifact" has a -8 penalty, your net
rating is "2", which is pretty low. So your chance in
succeeding in the cast is pretty darn low, like 15%.
TIP: Picking one of the specialties can gain you some more
casting skill points. For example, choosing "Ranger" gives
you +5 in "Nature" magic sphere in addition to other gains.
In other areas, choosing "Research" as special ability will
give you +5 in Alchemy as well as give you the first level
spell.
NOTE: All spells must be purchased with APs. This has
nothing to do with the casting skill itself. However,
casting skill itself can also be purchased with APs, at
great cost.
NOTE: With nine different "spheres" of magic, there sure are
plenty of choices. However, NOT ALL are equally useful.
Humans, with their selection of white, red, and black mages,
may want to concentrate on some other forms of magic than
those available to those mages. Other races with
spellcasters have similar choices.
3.3 HEROES AND LEVELS
NOTE: Choosing a profession (Warrior, Wizard, Rogue, or
Priest), will give you a 1 pt enhancement to one of your
statistics, depending on your choice. Choosing a profession
also limits your specialty later, which gives you further
enhancements. Consider the chart in [1.1] and the quick
reference card before making your final choice.
For exact bonuses of the various choices, see the WBC Quick
Reference card.
NOTE: For level 1 and level 2, you can ONLY gain 12 XP per
level. That is as designed. From level 3 on you can gain
more XPs (if the map allows that many).
TIP: For skirmish/multiplayer heroes, it is possible to
create "training maps" that pit your hero against a horde of
enemies, and earn over 100 XP per win.
How this actually works: when you gain a level and get some
AP to spend, the game looks at your race and profession (for
example, "human fighter", "orc pyromancer", etc.) and
display all the special abilities that applies to you. A
"human fighter" would see both "human special abilities" and
"fighter special abilities", and so on.
I'm not going to list the AP cost for each and every one.
You can look those up in the manual and the README file.
Some of the costs have changed slightly.
Here's an analysis of the various "special abilities" on how
they pertain to the race, specialty, and so on.
3.3.1 Human Special Abilities
Jack of All Trades: As the humans are always short on gold,
ANY type of savings in gold (or any other resources) is
good. For example, consider flaming arrow, which costs
almost 1000 gold and 1000 ore to research. If you can
research that for 25% off, the savings are enough to produce
8 pikemen (provided you have enough capacity). Jack of All
Trades can be further enhanced by the "Merchant" hero skill.
Research: not that interesting, unless you chose wizard of
priest as your profession, and specialized in Alchemy.
"Tomes of Knowledge" experts agree that Alchemist is the
worst "combat" magic specialty you can have, so even with
the +5 it's not much of an advantage. Still, there are some
spells in there that's interesting, like "acquire" or
"create artifact". And the golems are excellent as defensive
structures. They are as powerful as a tower and can do some
decent damage.
Knight Commander: half-priced knights are a SIGNIFICANT
advantage for humans, and thus a MUST-have. This makes
knights as cheap as mercenaries (except for the need for
ore).
3.3.2 Dwarf Special Abilities
Rune Lore: +5 to Runes. Makes casting rune magic easier and
more accurate. Runes includes "dig", which helps dwarves
build. Just remember to cast those spells when you need
them! It is not easy to remember to use those spells, so
SLOW DOWN the game if you need to, cast those spells, and
start building!
Dwarven armor: +1 to all damage types armor, always good to
have more protection, esp. without researching for it
Dwarven hammer: +5 to damage, always welcome to land more
damage, but you still need a high combat rating to ensure a
hit.
3.3.3 Undead Special Abilities
Wraithmaster: +5 Necromancy Casting skill, useful, as a lot
of those spells can be deadly.
Dark Summons: +5 Summoning Casting skill, always helps. This
makes undead master in both necromancy and summoning.
Skull Lord: Half price skeletons, even better for the early
rush. Too bad you need to advance a couple levels to get it.
Cheap skeletons mean more skeletons.
3.3.4 Minotaur Special Abilities
Fire Priest: +5 Pyromancy Casting skill, helpful if you
specialize in that area.
Gore : +5 to all hero's damage rolls, extra damage is good,
but you still need high combat rating to actually LAND those
hits.
Charge: +3 Speed skill, useful to chase down enemies or
making fast raids. Higher speed rating also means your hero
may get the first hit off, which can make all the
difference.
3.3.5 Orc Special Abilities
Hordemaster: -25% cost of all Orcish armies, definitely
helps, as you can use this to churn out more units and build
up faster.
Orc Lord: +4 Command skill, not THAT useful if your command
is already high enough. Leave this for "last".
Chanting: +5 Summoning Casting skill, only if you specialize
in that magic sphere or plan to.
3.3.6 High Elf Special Abilities
Elcor's Path: +5 healing Casting skill, always help to heal
your troops, even with that "healer" building around.
Golden General: +5 Command skill, leave this last as command
rating is not THAT important.
Golden Host: Half price `Rune of Animos'. Animos is rune of
cavalry, but you only pay this "once", so this is hardly
much of an improvement. Still, this gives you a slight head
start on cavalry (and thus, dragon knights).
3.3.7 Wood Elf Special Abilities
Druidic Magic: +5 Nature casting skill, best combined with
ranger's +5 nature
Scouting: Increased viewing range for hero, not that useful,
though ability to spot enemies before they spot you can help
a little when you're personally leading an attack. Also,
later in the game your view range is LESS than your command
radius, and that can lead to some problems.
Skylord: Half price `Rune of Cielos', which is for archers.
This just let you put out archers a little ahead of
schedule, since you only pay this "once".
3.3.8 Dark Elf Special Abilities
Dark Blade: +4% Assassin skill, which isn't much, but if you
take all the OTHER bonuses by specializing in assassin, you
have a 20% chance of killing enemy units outright.
Dark Rituals: +5 Summoning Casting skill, helpful if you
specialized in that sphere.
Sorcery: Half price `Rune of Manos', which is the sorcerer /
mage. Let you put out those ahead of schedule, but not much
else.
3.3.9 Barbarian Special Abilities
They don't have any. ;-)
3.4 SPECIALTY SPECIAL ABILITIES
When you pick a specialty "career", like "alchemist" or
"archmage", you also pick the choice of special abilities.
The full list is in the manual, so I won't list them again
here. Instead, I'll just make notes of some of the more
significant ones:
Alchemist: humans have a "research" skill that complements
this nicely. And even though many say this sphere is not
quite as powerful as others, it is also much easier to reach
master and grandmastery with it. Also, "herbalism"
complements the Healing sphere magic quite well. Don't
forget that "create artifact" is the only way to get the
best items.
Archmage: get immune to magic damage ASAP... If you can cast
some other resist spells like stone skin, resist fire, and
such, you'd be temporarily invincible, esp. if you got
grandmastery. Use this time to soak up enemy damage, and
cast some truly killer spells.
Assassin: get all the 4% bonus ASAP. Helps if you are a
"dark elf", as you get that extra 4%, for an even 20% of
assassinating a target outright, and that's ANY target.
Barbarian: riding is good, as you can get even MORE cavalry
out there for the early rush.
Bard: not a direct fighter at all, the special abilities are
all for enhancing your armies. Stay in the back and let your
army do the bashing. Get all the "command" skill
enhancements as you need to fight from the back.
Druid: gets animal training (half price cavalry) and
treemaster, which halves cost of treants, both of which are
pretty good.
Fighter: take "weapon mastery" first, as you need those
extra XPs early on. Arms lore helps a lot in combat.
Healer: get the upgrades to be even MORE effective... But
again, don't fight yourself. Get command radius upgrades to
increase effectiveness of your healing (heal more units).
Illusionist: the bonus means you should also specialize in
necromancy
Necromancer: get the vampirism special and your hero will
live a lot longer... if he fights.
Paladin: double mana regeneration is good if you're a spell
caster.
Pyromancer: permanent immunity to fire is always good, as is
setting targets on fire.
Ranger: get unicorns and flying units for half price is well
worth the AP spent...
Runemaster: you get some alchemy spells, so think about
double-schooling...
Summoner: you can get bonus in pyromancy, or give daemons
extra combat power... But how often do you find daemons
unless you summon them?
Thief: that extra income is always nice, as is the merchant
skill, which makes things even cheaper. Half price spell
upgrades in library is good, but you lose those after the
scenario is over. Illusion bonus means you should also be an
illusionist...
3.5 COMMAND RADIUS
TIP: You can temporarily boost the command radius with one
of the "common" spells... If you can cast ANY spells at all.
NOTE: Depending on your command skill, armies inside your
command radius get a bonus.
NOTE: Command radius controls conversions. The larger your
command radius the more things you can convert all at once.
TIP: Your command circle just needs to "touch" the
building/mine in order to convert it. With a late-game hero,
it's not unusual to convert 4-5 buildings simultaneously.
NOTE: Command radius can EXCEED view distance, so you may
end up converting things you can't see! This can be both a
blessing and a curse.
3.6 RETINUE
TIP: Not all units that join you can help you with
conversions and such. Refer to the manual for a list of
units that can convert buildings.
For example: If you're playing humans, white/red/black mage
can convert buildings and such, which can leave your hero to
do other things, like building stuff, convert more stuff,
etc.
NOTE: Lesser units (less than level 5) must have at least 20
XP to join your retinue. Level 5 units (generals) can be
from any race.
TIP: Everybody should have a white mage in their retinue (if
they can get one) as a white mage's "heal" makes all armies
nearby last longer.
TIP: Don't pick all high-cost units for your retinue. You
usually have 10-16 pts or so to bring into battle, and
having all high-cost units means you can't bring any into
battle. The pts depends on your command skill, among other
things.
3.7 SCENARIO START RETINUE
TIP: Before the scenario starts, consider your goals in the
scenario, then pick the starting units.
COMBAT: If you don't need to build anything, bring some high-
power units, like ogre, troll, etc. You need HPs, not
quantity.
BUILD: If you won't see combat for a while, pick builders,
because they can build things, leaving your hero free to
convert mines and such, and boost production later. The
hero's conversion radius is larger than those of mages and
other units.
RUSH: If you need to rush some enemies, pick cheap combat
troops and attack immediately. The enemy will not be ready
unless they have existing units standing by. Consider
leading your attack with your hero. Your main camp will be
undefended, but if you succeed, you'll surely win the
battle.
TIP: In general, it is better to bring one high-power unit
than two weak units. The stronger unit can survive and be
healed, while one of the weaker units will simply die.
3.8 HOW TO DEVELOPE A HERO
NOTE: Health rating actually controls your healing rate, not
your maximum hit points.
TIP: You should improve training to 13, 19 or 25. This way
you gain extra XP from each battle and gives your army extra
XPs when they fight as well. Beyond those numbers you need a
LOT of AP (ability points) to make an upgrade, and thus
would not be worth it.
TIP: Merchant skill is always good, as it gives you
discounts on making units, researching skills at buildings,
etc. Of course, the human special ability "Jack of All
Trades" is very good too, and is pretty cheap.
TIP: Spellcasting heroes need magery and speed (to run away
from things you can't handle).
TIP: Fighting heroes need high combat rating, as high as
possible. Any sort of resistance is also good.
NOTE: If the difference of combat rating between you and the
target (or vice versa) is greater than 20, the target will
receive additional damage.
TIP: Don't increase command TOO much, as having a command
radius larger than your view distance doesn't help much.
TIP: Health is more important than resistance, in general.
TIP: Find artifacts that will enhance those ratings you
need. If converting, add speed and conversion. If fighting,
add combat, command, and resistance. You can "customize"
your hero this way.
4 Additional Gameplay Info
4.1 RESOURCES
TIP: In general, the Humans/dwarves need lots of gold, the
orcs/minotaurs need lots of ore, and the Elves need lots of
crystals. Everybody needs stone for buildings.
NOTE: All workers inside are destroyed when the building
itself is destroyed.
TIP: Due to the bonus for razing, raids on enemy mines are
good ideas, esp. for the primitive races.
NOTE: Shipyard, while not a resource, works the same way. If
destroyed, it will be automatically rebuilt and end up as a
neutral building until someone convert it.
TIP: The "primitive" races like barbarians, orcs, and
minotaurs, have a "razing" bonus. Every building they raze
is worth 100 units of a specific resource. So sometimes, it
PAYS to wreck buildings and mines instead of converting
them.
TIP: An ancient wisp produces crystals as a level 1 mine. of
course, you need to spend 100 crystals or so to fuse 4 wisps
into an ancient wisp, not to mention all the crystal used to
make the 4 wisps in the first place.
TIP: Get the workers into the mines ASAP to push up
production. You need more production, even if it means delay
some of the upgrades.
4.2 PUTTING UNITS TO WORK
TIP: You can set the rally point of the keep directly on a
resource building. This way, the worker units will walk
directly from your keep directly to the mine, and help speed
up production. Combined with queues, this can simplify a lot
of your management. Just remember to switch from one mine to
another.
NOTE: The maximum number of workers in a mine is 8, though a
dwarf smith counts double.
NOTE: It is NOT possible to get the workers OUT of a mine
once you put them in. So protect those mines!
TIP: one way to fill up a mine quickly is with the "summon
thrall" spell/skill. Then you can put those 10 thralls, 8
into a mine, the rest sent into the world as their own
"free" adventure...
TIP: Another way is the kill the thralls and resurrect them
as skeletons.
NOTE: Wisps cannot be put into mines, so the elves are at a
disadvantage in that regard. However, elves can use "inn" to
trade if properly researched.
TIP: It is more "profitable" to reinforce a high-level mine
than a low-level mine, unless you can only protect the lower
one.
TIP: You really don't need to reinforce mines other than the
one your race needs the most. Again, humans need gold, and
so on.
TIP: Don't forget the zombie's ability to scavenge, once you
get that researched. Bring one along into battles and have
it scavenge the place.
4.3 STOCKPILING RESOURCES
NOTE: the only way to stockpile more resources is to build a
bigger/better "keep"
NOTE: the maximum you CAN store for each resource is 3000,
as only the largest keep is used for that calculation.
NOTE: If you lose the high level keep, your storage will
fall to 1000 research each, which means you can lose several
THOUSAND units of gold, ore, etc.
TIP: Have more than one keep is always a good idea, as
"backup". On the other hand, having more than one high-level
keep may not be necessary, unless your enemies raid your
keep and manage to destroy it.
4.4 RESOURCE MINES
TIP: You can see what "level" a resource building is by
looking at the number of "carts" next to it. Level 1 would
be 1 cart only, and so on. Crystal mines have extra crystals
beside the main one.
NOTE: Destroyed mines will become a fully functional neutral
mine in 3-5 minutes of game time.
NOTE: A mine CAN run dry, so a game does NOT last
infinitely.
4.5 ANIMALS
NOTE: Not all maps have animals.
NOTE: Sheep can be raised in corrals by certain races.
However, they count against the army limit.
NOTE: Trolls gather sheep to be throw as ammo. Click on a
troll and you'll see how many sheep is that troll holding.
NOTE: Minotaurs eat sheep to heal HPs and cure any
disease/poison. This applies to both heroes and units.
NOTE: There can be "geese" flying around. Those are neutral.
NOTE: Cows can be loaded in catapults and does a LOT of
damage.
4.6 ITEMS
TIP: Resource items usually appear near mines, but sometimes
appear in enemy camps, or near ruins and such. Just walk
into the items to "grab" them.
TIP: Special items in chests are usually quite weak, maybe
+1 or +2 in something. I've even seen -3 items.
TIP: The best bonus you can get is +5. Some of the best
items in the game have THREE +5's. Those are usually created
from "Create Artifact" spell, with "Grand Mastery" in
casting. The chance of getting something useful from chests
is usually minimal.
NOTE: You can sometimes get items from quests. Sometimes the
shrines / mausoleums / pyramid will "sell" you an item for
a price.
4.7 QUESTS
Quests may be riddles, kill something, destroy something,
pay something, etc..
TIP: In case you need some help with the riddles... Here are
the answers:
Sword, Arrow, Night, Flower, Youth
I'm sure you can figure out which one goes with which
question.
TIP: Get quests BEFORE you head into combat. That way, if
the quest is combat related (destroy X buildings, kill X
units, convert X buildings, etc.) you don't have to
backtrack.
5 Spells
Spells have some of the most interesting effects on your
heroes and your surroundings. While combat is important,
spells can affect combat in a big way.
There is a full list of spells in the manual, so I'll just
go over the basics.
According to Tomes of Knowledge, the best spells are:
Best spell overall: illusionism / mutate -- great for
minotaurs and orcs as it turns enemy units into sheep!
Minotaurs can munch the sheep to regain HP and cure disease,
while trolls can throw sheep and cause more damage.
Second best spell overall: necromancy / vampirism -- takes
enemy HP and add them to your own. Makes your units last
MUCH longer. Do 10 pt damage, you gain 10 pts back. Cast
them on your units before they head into battle.
Other useful spells include:
Alchemy / Acquire -- great for heroes/mages that can run
really fast... cast "acquire" on those mines and poof!
They're yours! Add some speed enhancements on the hero
through artifacts... Another way... Run into enemy base and
cast acquire, and watch the fireworks as the enemy defense
towers turn against their own base! If you have plenty of
mana, cast this multiple times inside an enemy base and you
got yourself a ready-made base! Time this with your attack
and you can wipe out the enemy in a true blitzkreig.
Alchemy / Create Artifact -- if you can get spell grand
mastery, create artifact can create +5, or even TRIPLE +5
items, which are nearly impossible to find in most
scenarios.
Healing / Group heal -- great if you don't have a white mage
tagging along... Keeps everybody in tip-top shape.
Rune / Dig -- decreases build time, get your base up and
running that much faster!
Alchemy / Golems (clay, stone, metal) -- excellent defense.
Cast one near your towers (or just in front of your group)
and enemy will try to hit it, while it hits back with magic
bolts (of which few have resistance for), and other
defenders are hitting back.
Needless to say, you need spell mastery, then grand mastery,
to caste the really effective spells, and that means you
need to specialize in magic. Still, being a dabbler in magic
can help.
6 General Shortcuts
Here are some time savers to help you manage your units on
the battlefield.
6.1 USE GROUPINGS!
Group your units and you can access them quickly.
I usually group my hero alone as group 1, and my white mage
as group 2. My important characters would probably be group
3. Then the rest of the numbers can be assigned as I build
my attack groups.
You can even set grouping to BUILDINGS, so that you can
instantly "snap" to it.
6.2 USE MOUSE SHORTCUTS!
Double-click on a unit will select ALL units of that type on
the screen. This helps you set groupings.
Right-click on a building immediately brings up the building
menu, better than click on the building, THEN click on the
menu button.
6.3 USE QUEUES!
Most of you know about the production queue, but did you
know you can queue buildings as well? Hit Build when you
have a builder unit selected, the hold down the shift key,
and click on a building. Now you can click multiple times on
the map, and the builder unit will continue building one
after another until either you run out of resources, was
blocked, or otherwise interrupted.
6.4 USE WAYPOINTS!
Waypoints can be very helpful if you want to specify a path
for a unit around certain enemy strong points and such.
However, a hero (or any other unit that can convert) can use
waypoints on his/her conversion trip.
For example, you can set your hero to go to a waypoint.
While the shift key is held down, click on the flag icon
(convert), and that waypoint will have a blue "convert" icon
on it. Repeat for every waypoint you wish the hero to do a
"convert", and the hero will do the route, do convert, then
run for next waypoint.
6.5 USE STOP!
Often, you'll notice your units, heading toward a waypoint,
walking right past enemy units, who are hitting them. Just
select your units and hit STOP, and they'll detect enemy
units and engage accordingly.
7 Phases of a Typical Battle
If the battle involves building, there are usually six
phases: setup, entrench, probe, raids, all-out battle, and
finally, clean-up. Different races are vulnerable during
different phases, and different races have different tempos
moving from phase to phase.
7.1 SETUP
The purpose of setup phase is to get your camp started, and
make sure you don't run out of any resources for upgrade to
level 2, as well as making your camp defensible.
When you first start, you should have some mines nearby.
Immediately have your hero convert the nearby mines.
Start building your keep immediately. Locate a good
defensible position. If the keep also produces workers, put
the keep near the mines. Else, put the keep in a corner
where it's defensible.
Send other conversion units out (with escort) and do a quick
search of nearby area and convert additional mines.
Build the unit producing structures (probably with your hero
as you send the idle worker into the mines) Immediately
produce 2-8 early units to help you defend.
Upgrade keep to level 2 when ready. You should attempt to do
this BEFORE you get raided by enemy heroes.
A lot of races are vulnerable in this phase. If you don't
have enough defenders early on, a quick raid by the enemy
hero with his units can take out your camp just like that.
7.2 ENTRENCH
Once you got the keep up to level 2, it's time to get some
better units on the field, and consolidate the hold on your
camp.
If you got the resources, start building towers to guard the
resources and your keep, and get those infantry units in
there. If enemy attacks, put the hero in a tower as well,
and that enhances the combat of the tower significantly.
Keep adding workers to the mines, and locate additional
mines. Remember to PROTECT the mines. By now, you should
have seen enemy raids. AI will only come from one or two
directions, so build more towers to protect against attack
in that direction. Against humans, you may need to just keep
a central reserve instead, and keep towers separated.
Against AI, some AI heroes seem to concentrate on converting
the mines nearby (depending on their personality), so if you
have earlier converted all the nearby mines, they will spend
times converting them, giving you more time to get
entrenched.
Consider sending the hero out to convert them back. Don't
reinforce those mines with workers. Just convert them back
when you get a chance.
Build some cavalry if you can and group them to explore the
land, and maybe destroy some enemy mines. Expand the search
circle around your camp first to locate more mines you can
convert later.
Keep expanding the camp by adding additional defensive units
and towers. Upgrade to level 3 keep when ready.
7.3 PROBE
During the probe phase, your camp is established, and it's
time to scout the land and locate the enemy.
This phase is usually short, as you can make a fairly
certain guess on where the enemy is coming from by observing
their raid patterns, and/or by placing a unit to follow the
retreating enemy.
The other way is scout by air. Build a single eyrie, and
start making low-level fliers, and send them out to explore
the world by flying to the four corners of the map, and
start the "grid" search pattern. It doesn't matter if they
die, they will have served their purpose.
Once you've identified enemy camp or mines, send in more
fliers to ascertain their location, as you need to locate
the side that's least defended, and their critical structure
that will put a severe crimp in their effectiveness. For
humans, go after the keep or stables. For Undead, go after
the tombs, and so on.
You can also use small but fast ground units for scouting.
Goblins are great for this as they are fast and they have
big view zones.
7.4 RAIDS
The raid phase is where you seek to weaken the enemy camp so
they are vulnerable for your big push, while you defend
yourself from enemy raids.
Cavalry, with their high speed, are the best raiders. Your
scouting should have paid off and located enemy structures
and mines for you to attack.
Resource denial should be done first. Send out raids to
destroy (or convert, if you're the elves) mines (fliers are
okay), esp. unprotected mines. Target the resources need by
your enemy. Humans need lots of gold, undead need lots of
ore and crystal, and so on. They can't protect every mine.
Raid stone mines as well as that is needed to build towers.
You also need to prevent the enemy from doing this to you.
Having some anti-air units (or a tower) stand by near each
important mine is good. Air units over each concentration of
mines are also good.
You should work on your skill upgrades in this phase, to
enhance the combat power you'll need in the big battle.
Send out LARGE groups of fliers to hunt the mines, and
cavalry to hunt towers and structures. If you can, bring
them home to be healed, then send them out again. Keep
making raiding groups to replace the losses. Keep strong
defenses at home and try to catch the enemy heroes raiding
you. Keep your hero at home or at least give him a large
escort (10 or more cavalry units and some flyers).
7.5 BIG BATTLE
The big battle phase is where you send in the huge army
you've accumulated while fending off the few enemy raids,
and this huge army will wipe out the enemy camp.
Before you attack, get the quests from the
shrines/masoleums/pyramids. If it involves destruction or
conversion, this is the time.
If you've been whittling down the enemy camp, send in a
flier or two as scouts. If you don't see any one protecting
the place, feel free to send the hero in (with escorts) to
convert the place for your use.
Else, just send in the attack units and watch them level the
whole place. Remember to move the idle units so they'll
attack the next series of buildings and such.
If there are more than one enemy camps, you may need to
repeat this and earlier phases.
7.6 CLEAN-UP
This phase is pretty short, as this just involves cleaning
up the map of all your opponents. Some may have escaped and
may be rebuilding elsewhere.
Build some flying units, maybe even dragons, and send them
out to explore the place. One frequent nag is you need to
destroy ALL units, that include warships. Once you wiped out
all the warships, and all the land units, that side is
toast.
If the battle still doesn't end, you may need to move your
hero to a specific spot.
7.7 ALTERNATIVE STRATEGY: LIGHTNING RAID
Sometimes, if you have a decent starting army (6-10 units),
and some strong characters, it may be worth the risk to
start an IMMEDIATELY attack on the enemy camp. Usually, the
enemy camp is not entrenched yet, and if you attack early
on, they may not even have many defenders up. So if you can
take out the enemy hero right then and there, you can
convert their camp and eliminate two birds with one stone.
However, this strategy carries significant risks. If you
have mission-critical characters, losing them means the
mission's over, yet the less fighters you bring, the less
likely your strategy will succeed.
If you don't have a white mage handy, the damage you
suffered in this battle means you may not be able to fend
off raids from other factions.
Finally, this strategy does NOT work if the enemy is already
entrenched, with towers and more defending.
7.8 ALTERNATIVE STRATEGY: EARLY RAID
The races that get early cavalry, like humans (mercenary)
and barbarians (riders) may wish to adopt an early raid
strategy to keep the enemy off balance. The cavalry units
are fast and can do significant damage to a camp if the hero
is out and about leading a raid (hero always takes "mixed"
units, some of this and some of that). Open the corridor by
destroying a tower, then head inside and destroy/destroy
critical structures. At the minimum, the structure is
weakened and they must spend resources to repair (if
possible, not all races can repair), or else you can send in
another raid at the same target.
Orcs may also wish to adopt the early raid strategy, esp.
after wolfrider gets "rabies" upgrade. You want to pass
disease, even if the wolfrider dies.
8 General Tactics
Here are some tactics that everyone should know.
8.1 START NEAR MINES YOU NEED
Start your keep near the mines you need. That way you spend
minimum time reinforcing the mines with builders... if you
can or need to.
There is an exception: The undead make builder units from
Tomb, so the keep can be anywhere you want. Similarly,
dwarves make builder units from smithy.
8.2 BUILD ALONG THE EDGE AND CORNER
Build along the edge of the map, preferably the corner, in a
"square" fashion, is the best. That way, you can protect
yourself by exposing only 2 sides, and make sure you have
enough towers for defense
8.3 EXPLOIT NATURAL TERRAIN
You can't cut trees and move hills in WBC, so those forests
are there to stay, unlike Warcraft series. Use them as
natural walls to protect your camp.
Look for choke points near you and seek to control them with
your towers and/or units.
Beach is not as good as it can be subjected to amphibious
assault.
River is not as good as it is rather narrow and missiles
(and long-range conversion) can be done from across the
river.
8.4 MAKE YOUR TERRAIN
Orcs should build orc huts as "walls" to protect their
surroundings. A walled off orc town with towers is a tough
nut to crack.
Undead can do similar things with gravestones, but those are
individually too weak to do much, and requires too much
crystals.
Building additional keeps is a possibility.
8.5 OFFENSIVE TACTICS
Some races should 'rush' the enemy with some of the earliest
units you can build, esp. high speed ones.
For example, Barbarians, with their early Barbarian riders,
love to rush you with 6-12 riders. If you don't have some
defenses set, those raiders can hit you quickly while you
attempt to grow your base.
Other races may be better rushing in the mid-game, or like
humans at the end game.
Consider sending your hero to raid enemy camps. If they
don't have a lot of defenses up, your hero may be able to
single-handed-ly take over the enemy camp. However, if you
lose the hero, you are doomed.
8.6 DEFENSIVE TACTICS
Towers are excellent defensive structures, if you have the
resources to build them.
Build towers in pairs or triplets, as a single tower is too
easy to destroy.
Put some melee units in front of the tower to soak up the
damage first, while the tower shoots back.
Put some archers and other missile units (trolls, giants,
liches) behind the towers, and if you got them, projectile
siege weapons.
Put your hero, mages, dryads, and such inside a tower and
they can do even MORE damage, and gains a lot of HPs
(temporarily due to the tower).
Dwarves are best on defense as their crossbow counts as
"advanced archers" and those arrows will do a LOT of damage.
Any kind of defensive units in a tower will do a lot of
damage. Just remember to repair the tower, if you can.
If the enemy hero leads the raid, KILL the enemy hero! Doing
so means their game is virtually doomed. They can't convert
any more resources unless they make more level 5 units
(exception: humans with level 4 white mage).
Search for chokepoints, and block it with certain
structures. Orcs, for example, can build orc huts as walls,
and put shamans behind that as shooters. Others can block
with other units that are not critical to the war effort
(i.e. you need just one, but can build more)
8.7 GUERILLA WARFARE
Elves can send Phoenixes out to convert mines and buildings
ALL OVER the map. This is best used after you get the
"Farseeing" skill, which reveals the whole map and enemy
units, but can be used before then. The phoenix is
relatively cheap and fast. Set them to cowardly and send
them to find and convert enemy mines and buildings.
Other races can do this too with their heroes, esp.
Alchemists, who can get the "Acquire" spell. "Acquire"
allows him to acquire all buildings inside a certain radius
almost instantaneously. Run in there, cast, run out. Wear a
few more of those speed-enhancing special items and they
can't even touch you! You can even make a few kills on the
way.
This is best used again races that do NOT convert a lot of
buildings (primitive or civilized races). Those races need
to get up to level 5 in order to produce more conversion
units. Before then, only their hero can convert.
8.8 USE THOSE HERO SPELLS!
Even human fighters can learn spells, though they'll
probably be pretty simple ones like Alchemy sphere spells
making "golems". Still, every bit counts. Some help in
defense, some help in offense.
For the generals, they have spells too, so use them!
SLOW DOWN the game if it's moving too fast for you to cast
spells.
Set hot keys for the most often used spells!
8.9 WHY HEAL ARMIES?
When you can simply build new ones? Simple...
1) armies cost resources to build, so if you can keep them
running, it saves you resources, which can be used on other
things, like building OTHER armies, or structures... or
research...
2) armies that survive gains expEyrience pts, which makes
them more effective. Also, only high-expEyrience units can
enter your retinue.
However, it also depends on the race you're playing.
Barbarians would have almost no reason to heal armies, for
example, since their armies are so cheap and so fast to
produce. Orcs are also easy to build and cheap.
8.10 ALTERNATIVES TO HEALING
While only humans have the white mage (unless they appear in
your retinue), there are alternatives.
[Bubblegeek] The High Elves & The Wood Elves have the Healer
building which has Healing upgrades to speed recovery and
"Elcor's Balm" which, for a big chunk of crystal, will heal
all your armies on the map.
Although not specifically Healing, the Undead have the
Transform ability-morph a skeleton into a wraith or wight to
restore its HPs; transform a Wight into a Liche or Slayer
Knight to restore its HPs; morph a Wraith into Shadow to
restore its HP-send a bunch of them into battle, take out
the most damaged ones, and morph them again..
Everybody has the Retinue method-Play the humans, make some
white Mages, and take them into your retinue when you leave
the scenario. Now you can bring them into the game no matter
which race you play.
8.11 NOTES ON TOWERS
[This section is from "Tomes of Knowledge" appendix]
Instead of firing its native missile type (Arrows for
Civilized Tower, Boulders for Primitive Towers, or Energy
Balls for Magic Towers), if missile units are placed in a
tower, then the tower will fire the same missile type as the
best missile unit in that tower. Thus if Gladewardens with
Flaming Arrows are placed in a Magical Tower, it will shoot
Flaming Arrows instead of Energy Balls.
Basic Infantry still count for +2 Combat & +1 Speed when in
a tower
Basic Missile troops still count for + 1 Range & +5 Damage
when in a tower
Advanced Infantry count for +3 Combat & +2 Speed when in a
tower, Advanced Infantry are: Dwarf Berserkers, Dwarf Lords,
Shadows, Slayer Knights, Vampires, Reavers, & Blackguard
Advanced Missile troops count for +10 Damage & +1 Range when
in a tower, Advanced Missile troops are: Red/White/Black
Mages, Dwarf Crossbows, Liches, Moonguard, Dryads,
Sorcerers, Mystics & Druids
A Hero counts for +4 Combat, +2 Speed, +10 Damage & +2 Range
8.12 NOTES ON DRAGONS
Everybody can build dragons provided they want to spend the
resources to upgrade their Eyries to level 3, AND spend the
1000 gold and 1000 crystal to build a dragon. It also takes
a VERY long time (6 minutes to be exact) to build one.
Make sure you have enough "army capacity", since a dragon
counts as FOUR army units.
8.13 FULL LIST OF THE HINTS DURING LOADING SCREEN
Here's the full list of hints as given in the loading screen
* Hold the SHIFT key while issuing orders to set up
queues of orders for your troops.
* If you hold down the ALT key and issue an order, your
troops will stop what they are doing and execute the new
order first.
* The function keys F1-F8 can be set up to hot-key
spells. With the cursor over a spell in the spellbook, press
F1-F8.
* The '+' and '-' keys can be used to alter the game
speed. There are five speeds available.
* Use the TAB key to cycle through all of your buildings
which can produce armies or skills. SHIFT-TAB cycles
backwards through the list.
* Use CTRL-TAB to cycle through ONLY the buildings which
can produce armies. CTRL-SHIFT-TAB cycles backwards through
the list.
* Your hero is also a builder. He can build any of the
major buildings for your side.
* To delete old heroes from the Book of Heroes, press the
DELETE key while on that screen.
* Double click on a unit to select all units of that type
on the screen.
* You can click on your hero's portrait in the control
panel to select him. Double clicking the portrait will
select and center on the hero.
* Use the 'Q' key to quickly check progress on a quest. A
small Grail at the base of your hero's portrait indicates a
quest.
* Pressing 'ESC' while a dialog is displayed in the game
will close that dialog down.
* Use the 'I' key to quickly check your inventory. You
can also open the Inventory by clicking on the Sack on the
left side of your hero's portrait.
* Use the 'S' key to quickly open your Spellbook. You
can also open the Spellbook by clicking the Orb on the right
side of your hero's portrait.
* The Orb on the right side of the hero's portrait fills
as you gain mana. The small numbers beneath it show exactly
how much Mana you have accumulated.
* As your hero takes damage his portrait will gradually
turn red. When the portrait is ALL red, your hero is
mortally wounded.
* Pressing CTRL 0-9 will define a group of units.
Pressing 0-9 will then select the group.
* Putting infantry and archers inside a Tower helps to
strengthen the tower. Only small units will fit in the tower
though!
* An infantryman placed inside a tower adds +1 to Speed &
+2 to Combat for that tower.
* An archer placed inside a tower adds +5 to Damage & +1
to Range for that tower.
* A hero placed inside a tower counts for two archers AND
two infantrymen when calculating the abilities of the tower.
* A tower is a great place to hide your hero when playing
with the "Assassination" victory condition.
* Remember to place builder units (i.e. Peasants,
Kobolds, Thralls, Zombies & Dwarf Smiths) into mines to
increase resource production.
* Right clicking on buildings will bring up the
production dialog for that building.
* Ancient Wisps are quite useful to the Elves - they can
generate crystal at the same rate as a Level 1 Crystal Mine.
* You can pause the game with the F12 key (in single-
player). While the game is paused, you can issue orders and
set up production.
* Trolls can pick up sheep and hurl them into battle. A
sheep does more damage than a Troll's ordinary rock attack!
* Catapults can load up cows then fling them at the
enemy. This is extremely demoralizing and also lots of fun!
* Minotaurs can eat sheep & cattle to heal & cure
themselves. This applies to ALL minotaurs - even the hero.
* Dwarf Smiths count as two men when put into a mine to
increase its resource production.
* Remember to seek out quests by selecting your hero and
right-clicking on a quest building (Pyramid, Shrine or
Mausoleum).
* Remember to hot-key your commonly used spells. Do this
by holding the mouse over that spell and pressing F1 - F8.
* In 1024 x 768 resolution you can lock an army or
building into the bottom left area of the screen by
selecting it and pressing Ctrl + L.
* Press SPACE to cycle the screen back to the sites of
previous messages.
* Don't fill your Retinue with too many high level
armies. They can be too expensive to take into some battles.
* Set up patrol paths for units to help in base-defense.
Select the unit, press 'p', then click on the patrol
point(s).
* You can click and drag out sections of walls for easier
building.
* Beware of large groups of Barbarians or Ballistae.
Their missiles can each hit multiple targets!
* Harpies & Black Mages can hinder enemy spellcasters by
use of their Drain Mana ability.
* Press 'R' to display your hero's Command Radius. He
can convert anything inside here.
* Press 'A' then right-click on the map to have units
attack any enemies while moving to their new destination.
9 Race Analysis: Humans
Humans are an average race that maintains power throughout.
The have good offense and defense in all stages. By late
game, the mages and knights are very powerful. The pikemen
and towers are excellent against races that like to rush.
Knights with "grand paladin" upgrade are deadly against
undead.
Humans are heavily dependent on gold, and later ore. Later
in the game they also need a lot of crystal. They don't need
much stones except for building.
9.1 HUMAN UNITS
Generals: White Mage is a necessity for every race, not just
humans. The fact that humans can produce them with a level 4
palace and library makes humans very hard to beat in late
game. Definite try to keep one in your retinue, and protect
him!
Red Mage is not that useful, unless the enemy is vulnerable
to fire damage. On the other hand, if the enemy deals a lot
of fire damage, Red Mage can cast "resist fire", which makes
enemy fire much less effective and makes liches almost
harmless. Another possibility is mix them in a group of
knights, and have them protect the knights with "ring of
fire" spell.
Black Mage can be interesting with poison cloud and mana
drain. Best used on other spellcasters or magic users (like
an elven galleon), and esp. heroes. With no mana, a lot of
the hero's firepower is negated. And a poisoned hero is
easily killed.
Cavalry: Knights are one of the best cavalry units in the
game, with plenty of hit points and high combat rating.
Their only weakness: no anti-air.
Mercenaries are okay, but nothing like a good knight
charge... Still, get some mercenaries out early and you can
seriously hurt your enemy while you work on your upgrades.
Archers: Squires are just average archers. Put two of them
in a tower as defense, along with two pikemen. Still,
squires are your only anti-air units unless you count mages.
Infantry: Pikemen gets a bonus against cavalry, but
otherwise are pretty average. Put two in a tower along with
2 squires. However, with upgrades, they become quite
powerful later in the game.
Workers: peasants are decent workers and can be produced
cheaply. Stuff them into those mines to increase output!
Best part... they count as 1/4 of an army for army limits,
which everybody counts their workers as 1. This allows the
humans to pump out a lot of gold by sending peasants to work
in the mines.
Air units: Eagle can only attack buildings and other fliers,
so if you want to build some, send them out as guerilla
attacks. Those without some towers or archers will have
problems dealing with them. Another way to use them is to
send them out and destroy enemy mines. Thus, you gain the
resources, and the enemy has to get out there and convert
them again (not to mention they lose the workers inside, if
any).
Pegasus is a decent flying unit, but not as good busting
towers as griffons. Still, in a herd they can do a LOT of
damage.
9.2 CRITICAL SKILLS TO RESEARCH
Flaming arrows (from archery range): expensive, but worth
it, also improves your other arrow shooters like towers and
ships.
Trade (by Market): allows conversion of one type of resource
to another (at 50% loss, but better than complete shortage!)
Paladin: (by Cathedral), makes knights even deadlier
Grand Paladin (by Cathedral), critical against undead
Weaponsmith (I and II) (from smithy), gives damage bonus,
makes pikemen very dangerous
Rites of Dawn (from cathedral), turns night into day, great
against Undead or other races that gets bonus in the
darkness.
9.3 OVERALL STRATEGY
Early on, humans are good on the defense, esp. against races
with lots of cavalry, like barbarians, esp. if they have a
good quarry nearby and can get several towers up and man
them with squires.
Usually, sit back and try to grow and protect their
resources. Build near concentration of gold mines as much as
possible, and extend towers to protect those mines, and
start on defense.
Get the cathedral up, and crank out large groups of knights
and clean the map with them, maybe backed up by some squires
and pegasi. Figure at least 4 stables, and 2-4 eyries, and 2
barracks.
Build a market to convert the other resources into resources
you need. You will usually have a surplus of stone and
crystals, and maybe ore. Convert that into gold and whatever
you need with a market's "trade" skill is essential, and
should be your first priority once available.
Once you get library, the knights are almost unstoppable
with white mages doing "group heal" on them.
Try to build more than one cathedral on different sides of
the map. That way, if the enemy manages to destroy one of
them, at least you get another one to play with.
Humans usually don't use much air or naval power unless the
map is very constricted or is mainly a naval map.
This strategy works against all races, with slight
modifications.
Against early bloomers, such as undead and barbarians,
pikemen provides good defense (double damage bonus against
cavalry), and your mercenaries are more than a match for
most early riders. The main problem with mercenaries is they
cost GOLD, which you're always short on.
Against late bloomers, a MOB of knights with "paladin"
upgrade and white mages can deal with almost anything by
then.
Almost ALL human units need gold (except higher up, when the
mages uses more crystals), so gold is VERY important. Secure
AT LEAST TWO gold mines, preferably level 3, and look for
ways to add more.
Having more than one conversion unit would help a lot
initially in the mad dash to convert resources to your flag.
9.4 HOW TO DEFEAT
The key to defeating humans is take away their resources,
such as gold and ore. If you can deny the humans their
resources, they can't expand / upgrade.
Rushing humans early on will not work, due to their high
defenses with towers and pikemen.
Consider sending out guerilla units and make suicide attacks
on human gold mines and quarries. Destroy their mines and
they will be without income for a while. Stone is needed to
build towers, and gold/stone is needed to upgrade the
palaces
The Elves can send out phoenix, which has pretty lousy
combat stats, but can take away several mines (if packed
closely together). Send small groups all over the map, both
as explorers and converters. Early on humans only have their
retinue to convert units, and if you can catch one of them
out and about you can at least hurt them, so you can kill
them later.
Other races should consider exploring the map with some
cheap units like thrall / kobold / zombie and then leave
some units near each mine just to annoy the heroes and maybe
keep him tied up converting mines.
Destroy any markets you see to compound their problem.
Another high priority target would be their cathedral.
10 Race Analysis: Dwarves
Overall: Dwarves have no cavalry, which means they can't
rush. Their "runners" don't really count. On the other hand,
dwarves build faster and can get the watchtowers up faster
as well. They also have a LOT of siege weapons.
Dwarves produce smiths out of smithy, not the keep.
Concentrate on defense first, and worry about offense later.
Need gold and ore early.
NOTE: Dwarves have extra resistance to "poison" and
"disease", which makes them ore effective against orcs and
dark elves.
NOTE: Rune spell "resist missile", which works even on
flaming arrows, are absolutely great for dwarves. Cast them
and watch them kill towers.
10.1 DWARVEN UNITS
General: Dwarf Lord can convert buildings, and has decent
hit points. It is the PERFECT tower killer. Add upgrades and
drunkeness, and it'll be unstoppable.
Cavalry: none
Archers: Dwarven crossbow is one of the best "archer" units
in the game, provided you use the "drunkeness" bonus.
Infantry: Runners with drunkeness can go speed 20 fully
upgraded, which is one of the fastest in the game (10
normal, +6 from Royal Messenger and +4 from dwarf brew),
great for chasing down pesky heroes. On the other hand, if
not upgraded, they're just "normal".
Dwarf Infantry is okay, nothing too special about them,
except their relatively low speed.
Berserkers are good, but cost a lot, and really needs a lot
of upgrades to be REALLY effective. Best used as "tank" (as
in "soak up the damage") while crossbowers shoot into the
melee.
Spellcaster: none
Siege units: Dwarves are uniquely blessed with THREE siege
engines: battering ram, ballista, and catapult. They each
have their uses. Battering ram is good taking down towers
and buildings.
Worker: Dwarf Smith actually has decent melee combat and
counts DOUBLE when put into mines to work. He is also one of
the fastest builders.
Air units: Eagle can only attack buildings and other fliers,
so if you want to build some, send them out as guerilla
attacks. Those without some towers or archers will have
problems dealing with them. Another way to use them is to
send them out and destroy enemy mines. Thus, you gain the
resources, and the enemy has to get out there and convert
them again (not to mention they lose the workers inside, if
any).
Griffons are decent fliers, comparable to Pegasus with just
minor differences. With a group of them you can wipe out a
lot of towers.
10.2 CRITICAL SKILLS TO RESEARCH
Dwarven brew (from inn), makes your units that much more
effective for limited periods of time as you engage
"drunkeness".
Trade (from market), allow trading one type of resources to
another, makes shortages more copable
Fletcher / Bower (from archery range), makes crossbow even
deadlier
Engineering (from library), builds cheaper
10.3 OVERALL STRATEGY
Dwarves need LOTS of ore (many of their units relies on ore,
esp. berserker). So build near ore mines.
Due to low speed of the dwarven ground units, dwarves
usually make slow but sure advances, backed up by a decent
air force of griffons. Their crossbows are first rate and
their ability to do "drunken fighting" makes them quite
deadly in melee.
They will build those watchtowers as defense and put
crossbows inside to protect their surroundings, usually near
ore mines.
Build at least two inns. You need "trade" and "dwarven brew"
ASAP. Put them on different sides of the base, preferably
one deep within your tower network.
Then build up to the point where they can send a series of
units (berserkers and crossbows, along with a smattering of
siege machines) as the "grand host", and slowly tear down
all your resources and defenses. The siege machines will
demolish your structures. The other units are just there to
protect the siege machines.
Another possibility is they will just build a big force of
griffons and let them do the fighting. Griffon mainly needs
rocks, which doesn't hurt the dwarves as much.
10.4 HOW TO DEFEAT
Dwarves have low speed, so they are usually vulnerable to
high speed attacks like cavalry charges and so on. Dwarves
also need a lot of ore, so "ore denial" strategy works as
well.
Destroy any markets you see to compound their problem.
Also go after inns, so they can't do that 'drunken' stuff.
Dwarves in general are not too good against air units, due
to slow speed. So if you send in a large group of air units
they can do some damage, at least until dwarves build up
their flock of griffons. So go after eyries.
Dwarves can be affected by spells, esp. large area damage
spells.
11 Race Analysis: Undead
Overall: Undead plays early offense, as you can quickly get
lots of skeletons up and running. The problem with undead is
the higher level units are only made by transforming lower
level units. This can lead to severe resource shortage if
you try to convert too many at a time. Instead, MIX UP the
troops. Make a FEW wights, a FEW slayer knights, etc. And
send them in WITH a HORDE of skeletons.
Try to fight at night or in the rain as much as possible.
Use spells to turn the weather.
NOTE: Undead has no psych effects (i.e. completely immune).
They also are immune to disease and poison. This makes them
effective against high elves (unicorn) and orcs (giant),
among others.
NOTE: Undead does NOT regenerate. However, morphing a lower
unit to a higher unit restores its hitpoints to full. For
example, if you morph a half dead skeleton to a wight, the
wight would have full hitpoints.
11.1 UNDEAD UNITS
General: Vampire is a REALLY weak level 5 unit. It's
basically infantry with vampirism, and if you spellcaster
can cast vampirism, Vampires are useless. On the other hand,
they kill orcs dead, very dead, due to their resistance to
crushing damage, and are likely to gain high experience
points.
Cavalry: none
Archers: Liche technically is not an archer, but it counts
as a "missile" unit shooting small fireballs. They do a lot
of damage, esp. in medium to large groups. Still, you need
pretty high level keep to make them, and lots of crystals,
and wights.
Infantry: Skeletons are extremely cheap and great for "rush"
attacks. Most melee does piercing damage, but skeletons are
vulnerable to crushing. This makes them great for killing
towers (piercing attack). Do NOT use against orcs for
minotaurs (they do crushing attacks). Build lots of
gravestones to make more skeletons. Skeletons are weak
though, only 20 HP.
Wraiths are a bit light on HP, but ability to attack both
air and ground units are good.
Wights are average with decent armor, but a bit slow. It's
main use is to be converted inot liches or slayer knights.
Shadow is basically a bigger badder wraith. They need
serious upgrades to be really effective, like Dark Mithril.
Shadow is also end-of-the-line, can't be upgraded any
further.
Slayer Knights: very strong, very tough, very slow, end of
the line (no more upgrades). Get those upgrades done ASAP!
Workers: Zombies can actually attack, with a lot of damage.
With a bit of protection like Dark Mithril upgrade, they are
actually decent combat units. They can pass disease onto
their targets. Scavenge enemy bodies, AND building... AND
you can create them in the middle of almost anywhere...
Interesting. Bring one along with raid or defending groups,
and they can salvage resources.
Air units: Giant Bats can only attack buildings and other
fliers, so if you want to build some, send them out as
guerilla attacks. Those without some towers or archers will
have problems dealing with them. Another way to use them is
to send them out and destroy enemy mines. Thus, you gain the
resources, and the enemy has to get out there and convert
them again (not to mention they lose the workers inside, if
any). These are cheap (compared to eagles) and you can crank
more them out faster.
Harpy causes poison, and can drain mana, which makes them
useful against other spellcasters and large groups. However,
they are vulnerable to other fliers. Send other fliers to
escort them on their attack runs.
11.2 CRITICAL SKILLS TO RESEARCH
Burial (from tomb): allows skeletons and gravestones,
absolutely necessary
Dark Mithril (from smithy): gives all units more armor and
more damage, requires master weaponsmith.
Tombguard (from keep), upgrades combat rating of wights.
Haunting / Wailing (from barrow), increases effectiveness of
wraiths and shadows
Torture / Fallen Knight (from dungeon) doubles / triples
slayer knight's damage. The latter is only good against
humans, so you don't need it if you're not fighting humans
(humans in this case includes both humans and barbarians)
Staff of Damnation / Liche King (from library), increases
liche's damage
11.3 OVERALL STRATEGY
Undead is an interesting race to play. Almost EVERYTHING
(except zombies, vampires, and flying units) are based on
skeletons. So the overall strategy is simple: build LOTS of
skeletons, and send them in. As skeletons take damage,
convert the most damaged one to wight and wraiths, and
repeat.
Protect your gold, metal, and crystal mines. You need those
to transform skeletons into tougher units, and to make more
skeletons
Put thralls and zombies into mines to pump them for maximum
output.
Spread tombstones ALL OVER the landscape, in small groups of
4-5, or build them in tight-neat rows of 20-40 (if you have
enough resources).
Constantly send groups of skeletons and wights to enemy
camps. You'll wear them down.
Use giant bats to raid enemy buildings and as air defense. A
group of them can destroy buildings easily, and can go
anywhere fast. Repairing buildings use up resources too.
Raid enemy mines is also a good idea.
Use slavehorde to call up thralls, then kill them, then
salvage them as zombies. You can also use Feast of Garok to
scavenge resources with the zombies.
If your hero is a necromancer, you can help by summoning
thralls, zombies and vampires, which costs just mana, not
resources.
Use vampirism to make your units survive longer.
11.4 HOW TO DEFEAT
Playing undead needs LOTS of gold, metal, and crystals. If
you can deny undead their resources, you have half the
battle won already, as they can't upgrade, and you can
defeat skeletons easy enough.
Raid enemy mines, either convert them or wreck them. They
don't have that many units that can convert early on except
their hero, and the more the hero needs to convert, the less
he can raid you.
Use units with crushing attacks to defend against skeletons.
12 Race Analysis: Barbarians
Overall: Barbarians are a "rush" race. They are strong early
on but fades out at higher levels of upgrades. Your plan is
to get cavalry ready, then produce a large group of riders
(8-12) and rush the enemy camp ASAP.
Later in the game, you need to get Altar up quickly, and
research Berserk, Jihad, and so on. That will help you
continue the rush and make your units last a little longer.
Don't defend... attack! Don't forget to get some corral
upgrades to make your cavalry do more damage also.
NOTE: Don't forget the "razing bonus"... You get 100 gold
per razed building.
12.1 BARBARIAN UNITS
General: The Reaver is a very good melee unit, and can kill
other level 5 units. On the other hand, it has low armor,
and you don't get it until late game (keep level 5).
Cavalry: the barbarian riders can be quickly mass-produced
and excellent for "rush" attacks. However, they have weak HP
and weak attack. The speed upgrades helps, as does the
"shield of Sartek" upgrades. Won't work against humans, of
course. Remember about Pikemen's bonus!
Archer: Barbarian (spearman) has carry-through damage, which
is useful against a "horde" of targets. On the other hand,
they are relatively weak compared to other archers.
Infantry: Technically Barbarians use minotaurs as infantry,
and that's a level 4 upgrade... Rely on cavalry early on.
Minotaurs are pretty slow, but relatively sturdy (and
expensive).
Worker: Thralls are quite weak and easily killed, but at
least they're cheap to make.
Spellcaster: none
Siege unit: none
Air units: Eagle can only attack buildings and other fliers,
so if you want to build some, send them out as guerilla
attacks. Those without some towers or archers will have
problems dealing with them. Another way to use them is to
send them out and destroy enemy mines. Thus, you gain the
resources, and the enemy has to get out there and convert
them again (not to mention they lose the workers inside, if
any).
Pegasus is a decent flying unit, but not as good busting
towers as griffons. Still, in a herd they can do a LOT of
damage.
12.2 CRITICAL SKILLS TO RESEARCH
Horsemaster / Horselord / Rearing / Trampling (from corral),
makes cavalry that much more effective, both speed and
combat. Speed is not critical, but combat is.
Magical tattoos (from altar), adding armor is always good
Jihad (from altar), makes units cheaper
Berserk (from altar), limited duration enhancement to combat
12.3 OVERALL STRATEGY
Barbarians need to rush early and rush often. Build up a set
of cavalry, say 8-12 of them, and send them to deny enemy
resources and raid enemy camps. If you can wipe out their
keep they will be severely set back (not to mention decrease
their unit count!) If they have NO builders left, they have
to use their hero to rebuild!
12.4 HOW TO DEFEAT
Barbarians are pretty easy to defeat if you can survive
their early rushes. Have towers set up with overlapping
fields of fire and good missile fire.
They need ore and stone so deny them that. They don't have
much upgrades so if you can get to level 3 keep they are
13 Race Analysis: Orcs
Overall: Orcs are pretty much average. While they aren't as
strong as the Barbarians early on, they don't "fade" like
the Barbarians at higher levels of development. Research
those Arena upgrades and such to get improved infantry. Get
henge up and running so you can research shamans and build
some totems as defense. Build those orc huts to quickly
raise your army limit.
NOTE: Orcs are more susceptible to psych effects (lasting
50% longer) which means psych creatures like Unicorn,
Dragons, etc. are very effective.
NOTE: Orcs are immune to disease and poison.
NOTE: Orcs cannot repair buildings. If it's damaged, it
stays damaged.
NOTE: Orcs have a razing bonus... Every razed building
provides 100 stone.
NOTE: Orc basilisks, when killing someone, gains 100 stone
if the attack was successful (i.e. target was killed)
13.1 ORC UNITS
Generals: Giants are not really worth their cost. They are
big, but they don't have that much hit points. They can
throw things, and can convert things, but that's about it.
Cavalry: Wolf Riders can carry disease, which can do quite a
bit of damage for follow-up attacks. However, it needs
upgrades.
Archers: Troll doesn't fire fast enough or cause quite
enough damage, unless you find a sheep or two. Still, trolls
have a lot of HPs, so if you have a group of them they will
do damage. That means you need more than one dungeon.
Basilisks are decent attackers as well and attack from a
distance. Mix them in with wolf riders and enjoy.
NOTE: When basilisk kills something, you get bonus amount of
stones!
Infantry: Orcs can be produced relatively quickly, and later
upgrades keep them in the game.
Goblins are too weak individually, but can be mass-produced
and are reasonably fast for raids and such.
Ogre can do both ground and air attacks, and is physically
intimidating.
Spellcasters: Goblin Shaman has some decent spells he can
bring up.
Workers: kobold causes poison if successfully hit, but
otherwise is a normal "worker".
Siege units: none
Air units: Giant Bats can only attack buildings and other
fliers, so if you want to build some, send them out as
guerilla attacks. Those without some towers or archers will
have problems dealing with them. Another way to use them is
to send them out and destroy enemy mines. Thus, you gain the
resources, and the enemy has to get out there and convert
them again (not to mention they lose the workers inside, if
any). These are cheap (compared to eagles) and you can crank
more them out faster.
Harpy causes poison, and can drain mana, which makes them
useful against other spellcasters and large groups. However,
they are vulnerable to other fliers. Send other fliers to
escort them on their attack runs.
13.2 CRITICAL SKILLS TO RESEARCH
No Pain! (from arena), resistant to missile attacks
Cowards! (from arena), double damage to missile/archer units
Thump! (from arena), +10 damage for ogres
Rabies (from cave), adds disease to wolfriders
Shaman (from henge), allows shaman and totems
13.3 OVERALL STRATEGY
You get scout towers early, so consider an early rush of
goblins. While they are relatively easy to kill, you can
build a LOT of them with just a couple scout towers. Goblins
already carry disease, which can soften up the enemies for
later attacks. Send them in from different directions so you
can be sure of infecting different armies. If you can poison
the enemy hero, yahoo!
Safeguard any quarries nearby. You needs LOTS of stone.
While some can be generated by basilisks, it's not
guaranteed.
Build up to level 2 and put down many (at least 5) caves to
produce wolfriders and/or basilisks. Then upgrade them, and
use them to rush the enemy base. With extreme high speed (up
to 19), they are excellent
Send Wolfrider with "disease" to attack enemy heroes. They
have high speed needed to chase down heroes, and disease, if
not cured, makes hero VERY easy to kill.
Build Eyries (at least 3?) and send in LOTS of bats, to raid
mines, enemy buildings, and as air defense (if necessary).
Use orc huts to block off the parts of base you wish to
protect. They increase your army limit as well as give you a
bit of "wall".
Basilisks kill things and produce stones, which helps make
more trolls. So send trolls and basilisks together!
Use basilisk to kill animals on the map to get even MORE
stone.
13.4 HOW TO DEFEAT
Orc need a LOT of stones. If you can deny them the early
need of stones, and don't let the basilisks generate more
stones, you can win.
Orcs are weak against fire and magic damage.
Deny the orcs of their "razing bonus" by destroying the
building yourself (Ctrl-D) when it's almost dead.
Undead is immune to disease and poison of the Orcs.
Flyers are good against orcs as orcs don't have many anti-
air units except giants, ogres, trolls, and shamans. All are
late-game units. Bats are too weak.
Elf should build towers against orcs, as those shoot "magic
balls".
14 Race Analysis: Minotaurs
Overall: Miinotaur starts strong, but does not get that many
upgrades. They have NO archers and NO infantry, so they are
pretty slow and melee only. The lack of "healing" hurts as
well, and if you raise sheep, that counts against your army
limit. However, the ability to build an Inn and get morale
bonus as well as dwarven brew helps in combat. You need to
get some units out and attack early on. The power graph
basically is high in the middle, fades in mid-game, and
rises up at the end due to Minotaur kings.
NOTE: minotaur is resistance to chaos, but if it takes hold,
it doubles in duration.
NOTE: minotaur has razing bonus... every destroyed building
yields 100 metal/ore.
NOTE: minotaur can only heal /cure by eating sheep,
including minotaur heroes.
14.1 MINOTAUR UNITS
General: The Minotaur King is an awesome unit. Two of them
can kill a dragon (yes, they can hit air units) and costs
less (and builds in less time). Eat some animals to heal,
and if you can get some vampirism spell on them, they are
perfect raiders.
Cavalry: none
Archers: none
Infantry: the basic minotaur is a decent melee fighter with
crushing damage.
Spellcaster: Goblin shaman is same as orcs.
Worker: Thrall is easily killed.
Siege Unit: battering ram and catapults are available.
Air units: Giant Bats can only attack buildings and other
fliers, so if you want to build some, send them out as
guerilla attacks. Those without some towers or archers will
have problems dealing with them. Another way to use them is
to send them out and destroy enemy mines. Thus, you gain the
resources, and the enemy has to get out there and convert
them again (not to mention they lose the workers inside, if
any). These are cheap (compared to eagles) and you can crank
more them out faster.
Griffons are decent fliers, comparable to Pegasus with just
minor differences. With a group of them you can wipe out a
lot of towers.
14.2 CRITICAL SKILLS TO RESEARCH
Shield of Sartek (I and II) (from Smithy), increases
protection
____ of Sartek (from Ziggurat, all levels), all enhances
your warriors in some way
Dwarven brew (from inn), gives temporary enhancements to
your units
Farseeing (from scout tower), the only other race with this
ability other than Wood Elves, tremendous advantage to see
the whole map
Berserk (from altar), gives unit temporary advantage in
combat
14.3 OVERALL STRATEGY
Get two ziggurats up ASAP, and build a full set of thralls
to reinforce each and every mine you find. You need ore and
stone mines nearby. Build arenas and start cranking out
units. Keep one keep on research and upgrades, and the other
keep to make more thralls. Use those to explore the world
for more mines. Your hero should be converting more mines as
well.
Add corrals to make basilisks, and start with a smithy for
upgrades. Make a force of basilisks and minotaurs, and send
them to raid enemy camp, mainly to kill enemy armies so you
can get more stone.
Make eyries and start making air defense forces. Make towers
as defense, and start making ballistas as harrassment units.
Send those in and go after enemy mines and buildings along
with air units.
Build shamans when you get to keep level 4 and put them in
towers as air defense. Keep harassing the enemy with
ballistas and minotaurs and basilisks. Save the rest of the
resources for upgrade to keep level 5.
Once keep level 5 has been reached, send most of your ground
units in and rush the enemy base. You need to reduce your
head count so you can make minotaur kings. After that,
minotaur kings will rule the battlefield.
14.4 HOW TO DEFEAT
Do NOT allow Minotaur players to survive to keep level 5. If
they can get that high, minotaur kings are hard to kill
(except maybe by Barbarian Reavers)
Control minotaurs by taking away their resources... ore and
stone. If they can't upgrade early, they won't survive to
the point of making minotaur kings.
Missile/archer and spellcaster units can kill minotaur
kings, if there are enough of them.
15 Race Analysis: High Elves
Overall: High elves needs LOTS of crystals, and being the
only elves with "market" helps a lot in that regard as you
can research "trade" as you get that at tower level 2. Wood
elves have to wait until tower level 3, and dark elves have
none! Having the healer building also helps. Cathedral and
dragon shrine helps you create some of the heftier units.
NOTE: High elves get slight combat bonus in day time
NOTE: High elves are immune to fear and terror, which means
they remain effective against daemons and dragons.
NOTE: High elves have NO resistance against poison and
disease, which makes Orcs their natural enemy.
NOTE: High elves are the only ones who can build ALL types
of ships.
15.1 HIGH ELVEN UNITS
General: Moonguard is a very weak level 5 unit, when
compared to other level 5 units. The multi-target shot are
not that useful unless being swamped by multiple small
targets, and then only with some powerful archery range
upgrades.
Cavalry: Dragon Knights can hit both ground and air units,
and with bonus, can actually take on dragons. However, it is
a late level unit and requires a lot of buildings to
produce.
Unicorn is a decent cavalry as it causes psych effects on
the targets. It's a little expensive though.
Archer: longbow is okay, arguably one of the top missile
units, probably third after dwarf crossbow and wood elf
glenwarden.
High Elves can also summon imp, whish is a decent missile
unit but uses up a lot of crystals.
Ancient wisp can also perform as a long-range attacker, but
is actually closer to a spellcaster than a missile user.
Infantry: Iceguard is decent, but nothing too fancy about
them.
Spellcaster: Mystic is okay, nothing too special about them.
Worker: Wisp and Ancient wisp cost a LOT of crystals, and
CANNOT be put into mines.
Air Units: Phoenix is an interesting early raider. It can
shoot small fireballs, and it can CONVERT enemy buildings
and mines. So send them out and use them to convert mines
that no one will reach early on. Having the scout tower
"farseeing" skill really helps as you can send phoenix to
where the enemy is NOT.
Pegasus is a decent flying unit, but not as good busting
towers as griffons. Still, in a herd they can do a LOT of
damage.
15.2 CRITICAL SKILLS TO RESEARCH
Healing (I, II, and III) (from healer) enhances natural
healing rates
Elcor's Balm (from healer) heals everybody immediately
Trade (from market) trade resources from one type to another
and solves shortages
Dragon Warriors (from Dragon Shrine), gives iceguards +10
damage
Knights of the Dragon (I, II, and III) (from Dragon Shrine),
gives BIG combat bonuses, AND increases damage against
dragons, but only for dragon knights
Licorn (from Magic Pool), gives unicorns +10 damage, makes
them more useful
15.3 OVERALL STRATEGY
High elves are late-bloomers. They shine when level 4 keep
is made, which is when they get dragon knights and unicorns.
This, combined with pegasus, makes for a potent combo
that'll have you drowning in hooves. Early on, they're
pretty weak, and rely on towers and longbow to hold enemies
at bay.
Iceguard is not THAT good, and longbow is just "okay". So
high elf defenses are not quite as strong as the humans. Use
natural terrain, and build up towers to hold your resources.
Build up some units to man defenses, concentrate on growing
your keep and build better units instead of on building more
units.
Dragon shrine is important, so you basically have to survive
until that gets made (which is only level 3!) The level 4
unicorns also help a lot, as they cause awe in most units.
Consider sending phoenix out to convert enemy mines and
buildings, and as "explorers" to open up the map. You can
both deny enemy resources and gain your own. Against enemies
without many conversion units, this is invaluable.
15.4 HOW TO DEFEAT
High elves rely on market (convert resources), dragon shrine
(dragon knights), and cathedral (other upgrades). Destroy
any of them would help a lot.
Early rush against high elves can work, esp. if they have no
existing towers.
Rush high elves early with tower-busting units. Don't let
them reach level 3 and they won't be dangerous.
Standard advice: take away their resources. Raid mines and
destroy them.
15.5 RACE ANALYSIS: WOOD ELVES
Overall: wood elves rely on their archers and treants. They
have the most archery range upgrades, and the white tree
makes treants even more dangerous. White tree also produces
pixies and sprites (at cost of more crystals). The problem
with wood elves is you are going to be SEVERELY short on
crystals until you can build an inn and accumulate enough to
research "trade".
NOTE: wood elves have bonus against fear and terror
NOTE: wood elves have penalties against poison and disease
(extra susceptible)
15.6 WOOD ELVEN UNITS
General: The dryads are some of the fastest units in the
game, and great for hit-and-run conversion attacks on enemy
resources, esp. with 25% faster conversion built-in.
However, it has no firepower, and should be set to
"cowardly" unless part of a group. It can be produced very
quickly (compared to other level 5 creatures) and thus can
provide a lot of firepower.
Cavalry: Woodrider is average, not too many HPs.
Archer: Gladewarden is one of the best archers in the
business, but only after all the upgrades.
Sprites at higher levels can be a good substitute for
Gladewarden, with higher speed and ability to fly over
obstacles.
Infantry: you get forest guard and treants. While forest
guard is just "normal", treants are big and tough units that
can take a lot of punishment, but it's also quite slow.
Treants can also build, and can be enhanced by doing some
research at the White Tree.
Spellcaster: Druid has some decent magic, but no HPs to
absorb any hits.
Siege units: none
Workers: standard wisps and ancient wisps, enough said. They
cannot be put into mines, and you need like 300 units of
crystal to make an ancient wisp.
NOTE: Treants are considered builders as well, and causes
FEAR. It can also cast "entangle", which slows the target
down.
Air Units: Phoenix is an interesting early raider. It can
shoot small fireballs, and it can CONVERT enemy buildings
and mines. So send them out and use them to convert mines
that no one will reach early on. Having the scout tower
"farseeing" skill really helps as you can send phoenix to
where the enemy is NOT.
Griffons are decent fliers, comparable to Pegasus with just
minor differences. With a group of them you can wipe out a
lot of towers.
15.7 CRITICAL SKILLS TO RESEARCH
Healing (1-3) and Elcor's Balm (from healer), enhances
healing rates
Farseeing (from scout tower), reveals everything on the map,
and just need some gold, a tremendous advantage.
Bowmaster (from archery range), gives extra damage to
gladewardens
Trade (from inn), solves resource shortages
Thorns / Ironbark / Mighty Oaks (from White Tree), makes
Trenants that much more dangerous
15.8 OVERALL STRATEGY
Wood Elves have speed and range, and thus are perfect for
guerilla attacks, except Treant. They don't have much
hitpoints though, except treant, which is VERY slow.
Treant is best left home as defensive unit who can also help
you build things. They can be used as a "moving wall" of
sorts to keep the enemy at bay while the gladewardens
perforate them with arrows.
Get out there and claim gold and crystals, and work on
defense, defense, and defense. You need to create enough
treants and Griffons / Sprites / Imps to create the crushing
force.
Griffons takes just stone and gold, the two things Wood
Elves don't really need (or just needs less), so make lots
of them.
Get Farseeing, and use that to direct your war effort.
Send out Phoenix to raid enemy resources.
Send out large flocks of Phoenix to raze enemy armies and
resources, esp. armies that have lousy anti-air, such as
Orcs and Minotaurs.
Build many white trees in order to build up a large flock of
pixies and trenants. White trees can often be hidden in
forests away from your main camp.
15.9 HOW TO DEFEAT
Wood Elves need crystals, so if you can control the mines,
you got the game half won.
Take out the inn, and they can't exchange resources.
Take out the tower, and they can't do Farseeing.
Keep archers around mines to protect them from Phoenixes.
Two to three of them should be enough, but if he sends
larger groups you'll have problems.
Don't let them get up to keep level 4, which is where they
can make treants, and/or get upgrades for it.
16 Race Analysis: Dark Elves
Overall: Dark Elves need their spells to survive, and uses a
LOT of crystals. Their combat units are not quite up to par.
On the other hand, their ability to build tombs and
gravestones means they can send out hordes of skeletons.
They can also put zombies into mines to work. This makes
them bloom later in the game due to upgrades with the
Dungeon (slavehorde, Blood Potion, and Dark Order), and
Altar (Summon Mana, Sacrifice, Sorcery, and Darkbolt). Of
course, those research will cost you resources and time.
NOTE: Dark elves get a combat bonus fighting a night.
NOTE: Dark elves are immune to fear.
NOTE: Dark elves are extra susceptible to awe (double
duration)
16.1 DARK ELVEN UNITS
General: One trick to use with Dark Elves is to use the
blackguards as assassination units. Use the "invisibility"
spell to get through enemy territory, then attack a unit
that is slightly apart from the rest. Otherwise, they are
quite "normal".
Cavalry: Dark Riders are below average
Archer: Dark archer is slightly weaker than their other
elven bretherens.
Imp is a decent missile unit, but takes a lot of crystals.
Ancient wisp, which is also a worker, does decent damage. It
also generates crystals as a level 1 crystal mine. Of
course, it takes 100 crystals to fuse 4 wisps into an
ancient wisp.
Infantry: Dark infantry is quite weak, and not really up to
the task of direct combat.
Assassins, on the other hand, are interesting. They have a
chance to assassinate a target outright. They can also
poison . With speed 16 they are quite fast and can chase
down most other units. Of course, they are expensive.
Worker: Wisp is okay, but you can't reinforce mines with
them. You can only spend 100 cyrstal and combine 4 of them
into an ancient wisp, which actually eats more crystal,
since it takes almost 50 crystal to make each wisp to start
with. How long do you keep an ancient wisp just to make back
300 units of crystal?
On the other hand, ancient wisp has a longer attack range,
does more damage, and has more hitpoints.
Spellcaster: Sorcerer does pretty nasty damage, but can't
receive any damage.
Siege unit: none
Air Units: Phoenix is an interesting early raider. It can
shoot small fireballs, and it can CONVERT enemy buildings
and mines. So send them out and use them to convert mines
that no one will reach early on. Having the scout tower
"farseeing" skill really helps as you can send phoenix to
where the enemy is NOT.
Harpy causes poison, and can drain mana, which makes them
useful against other spellcasters and large groups. However,
they are vulnerable to other fliers. Send other fliers to
escort them on their attack runs.
16.2 CRITICAL SKILLS TO RESEARCH
Burial (from tomb), you need skeletons, and lots of them
Black Ward (1-3) (from tomb), adds a lot of "resistance"
Blood potion / Dark Order (from dungeon), adds to assassin's
chance of assassination
Darkbolt (from altar), +10 damage for sorcerers
Sacrifice (from altar), sacrifice units and see if you're
lucky enough to summon a daemon to fight for you... The
more you sacrifice, the more likely you'll get a daemon...
16.3 OVERALL STRATEGY
Dark Elves is an interesting mix between Undead and Elven
tech tree.
Early on, get skeletons and use them to rush, while you keep
building your force. Build infantry and archer to defend the
place, but don't build too many. The skeleton should keep
the enemies busy. Upgrade all the way to keep level 3, which
should allow you to work on Altar and Dungeon.
Send out phoenixes and raid enemy mines. Use thralls and/or
zombies to explore the landscape. Send out some zombies to
raid enemy camps and see if you can spread disease.
Upgrade to keep level 4, and you get harpy, which is a
decent air unit that can drain enemy mana and such.
Start cranking out assassins, which should become your best
units. Send a group of them to take out the enemy hero
and/or lone units. Get those upgrades done for assassins as
well. Send them on raids.
Try to research sacrifice and see if you can get daemon to
help you with you war...
16.4 HOW TO DEFEAT
Dark elves have lousy defensive units, and rely on their
hero for early defense, esp. with spells. So if you can
rush them early (whatever early cavalry and such) you can
take them.
Even in mid to end-level they still have relatively lousy
units. Take them out in early stages of the game would help.
17 Campaign Walkthru
The single-player campaign is human-only, no other races
allowed.
17.1 CHAPTER 1 : THE PROPHECY
You should review the Intro movie before starting. Note what
the white mage said... "Navarre".
17.1.1 Undead Patrol
Briefing: Patrol the area for Undead and eliminate all of
them. The forces you start with are all you got, no
reinforcements, no building. Don't lose any one of the
special characters (Robert, Minos, and your hero).
Map Layout: there is that "gap" to the north which is
guarded by a Liche with nice fireball spells, beyond which
are multiple groups of skeletons and an Undead hero.
TIP: Minos and Robert are a bit weak to be risked in direct
combat, unless you keep them out the thick of things, and
have a white mage on stand-by to do "group heal"...
Pick EVERYBODY and send them ALL through the gap at TOP
speed, not the "slowest army" speed. (You know the key to
issue THAT order, right?) You should only lose one or two
from that Lich on the eastern cliff of the gap.
Once you're out of range of the Liche, find a good spot and
line up the pikemen up front, squires (and Robert and you)
in the back. Set the group to guardian attitude (do NOT
move).
Send Minos out to lure the groups of skeletons, as few as
possible, back to the group in ambush.
Repeat until you clean out the map of the skeletons. Realign
and move the formation as you see fit.
Now head east, then south onto that "plateau" of the gap,
and take out that Lich. Voila! You win!
17.1.2 Base Camp
Briefing: You need to establish a base camp, which means a
level 3 keep. However, you don't have enough "stones" to do
it, and there are no quarries near you.
Map Layout: To the east are many Orcs. Wandering bands
(including 1 hero) will attack you, plus occasional bands of
goblins, easily dispatched. There's a river to north and
east, and Ogres, Orcs, and Trolls guard the bridges. Many
resources to south (gold mines and ore mines). Quarries to
the north.
TIP: Again, Minos and Robert are a bit weak to be risked in
direct combat. They are best used as a scout, as Robert's
"View: 13" can be used to spot enemies without himself being
spotted.
Starting Retinue: A white mage can help here, as can a
peasant or two to build things while your hero convert the
mines.
You can immediately start building your level 1 keep. Let
the Peasant do it, while your hero hurry south and convert
the mines there. Line up the pikemen just east of the keep
and put the squires behind them in standard defense
formation. Set them all to "guardian" attitude.
If you see some stone carts, great! That will immediately
allow you to go onto level 2 keep once you mine enough gold.
If not, you may have to do a little exploration.
Once your keep is up, immediately build 8 MORE peasants and
send them into the gold mine. You will need a LOT of gold to
keep building.
Take your hero, Minos, and a couple guards (few pikemen and
few squires) and start heading north. Convert the gold mine
about half way up the map, take resource cart there.
However, don't bother defending it. You're after stone, not
gold. If the enemy hero comes attacking, just let that mine
be converted.
Keep going north, stay as far west as you can. There are 3
Orcs at a gap to the east, but if you stay west they won't
see you. Go north until you're at the river. Now go east
until you see the bridge.
Line up in defense formation, guardian attitude, then use
Minos to lure one or two guards from the bridge. Take care
of them. Repeat for the other guards (including the ogre).
Now march across the bridge, go east, and you got your own
quarry for stone. Convert it. As you only need less than 300
rock there's no need to reinforce it with peasants. Just
leave a couple guards near the bridge, though I doubt any
one will attack you there. A couple goblins will come
attacking, though you can defeat them easily.
Feel free to try the Mausoleum before returning the hero to
the main camp. It's probably a riddle. If you get it you
will probably get a wraith.
In the meanwhile, now that you got a steady income of rocks,
you have a choice. You can build a barracks and get a couple
more kills by lining up a more impressive defense, or you
can just hurry and build level 3 keep before the Orcs mount
a serious attack.
With the hero's help, you should be able to repel the Orc
attacks and get your level 3 keep up and running. Once you
do that, you win!
17.1.3 Rescuing Elana
Briefing: Keep Elana and the other special characters safe
for 30 minutes from continual Orc assault.
Map Layout: You have the southwest portion of the map. The
middle and northeast are Orc territory, blocked off by
mountains, and they have heavy tower presence.
Starting Retinue: A white mage can help here, as can a
peasant or two to build things while your hero convert the
mines.
Your objective is survival, not annihilation of the enemy.
Basically, this is a building contest. Immediately convert
ALL the mines near you (there would be at least one of every
type around) and pluck down the palace, then barracks,
smithy, upgrade the palace, pluck down stables and archery
range... Start researching those "skills" in smithy to
upgrade your units ASAP. Keep Elana, Robert, and Minos out
of the way. You don't need them to defend.
You will need LOTS of gold, so immediately start building
peasants, 8 to each gold mine, to help accelerate growth.
Then build 8 more peasants and send them to the crystal
mine. You will need plenty of crystal to research flaming
arrows. Keep upgrading palaces. You need knights ASAP, but
don't forget pikemen and squires.
Upgrade and research more skills any time you can. You don't
need EEyries or Eagles. You will need more pikemen and
squires. Definitely research flaming arrows when you can.
You may not get enough time to build lots of knights, but
definitely build some mercenaries. Towers may help, but eat
up a LOT of stones.
You don't need to explore as enemy will come to you. Don't
attack them unless you have defeated the final 3-wave
attack. Even then, it's not necessary.
Orcs will attack you in waves of alternating Orcs and
Goblins (who can poison). However, if you have enough
pikemen and squire you should lose few/no units at all. Use
your white mage to cure any poisoned units.
With about 5 minutes to go, the BIG attack will come... A
large swarm of goblins, followed by a large swarm of orcs,
then finally a large swarm of harpies (bats?). If you've
built up the units as suggested, then this should be no
problem at all. Those flaming arrows kill things really
dead.
Once the timer expires, you win!
17.1.4 Elana (Video)
You've found Elana, and the deceased Master Goodwine. Elana
knows nothing about the two tears, unfortunately. However,
she does know Goodwine's fellow wizard, Aelfwine, who may be
able to help...
17.1.5 Gap of Palmyr
Briefing: You need to penetrate the "Gap of Palmyr", which
is Minotaur country. There are NO armies of yours on the map
except what you brought as your retinue.
Map Layout: Again, you start in the southwest corner, and
this map is quite a bit bigger. There are TWO enemy camps...
A small one to the northeast, and a big one to the
northwest. There is a shrine to east on the road, and a
mausoleum east of that, almost to the edge.
Starting Retinue: A peasant or two to build things while
your hero convert the mines. Bring a general (white mage?)
to help convert things, and to heal troops.
There are two ways to do this. If you are fast, you can RUSH
the enemy. Yes, rush. Or you can build really fast and hope
those basilisks and minotaurs don't kill you first.
Rush strategy is as follows: Both you and enemy start with
nothing, but computer builds a lot faster than you could. So
start with 1 peasant, 1 general, and multiple squires. Start
building, while your hero and white mage convert all the
nearby resources. Group Robert, Minos, and the squires, and
send them north through the gap, past the towers. And start
destroying EVERY mine you can find. This will cripple their
production, so you won't even be attacked at your main camp.
Rush strategy means you have to use those characters like
Robert and Minos, and if they die, you lose. Be VERY careful
using them. When used right, they will give you the initial
advantage.
While your "task force" goes forth and conquers, your hero
and peasant are busy building more structures and more units
to keep things running. Send forth some reinforcements from
your camp to replace losses. Consider sending the hero
and/or white mage forward and use peasants to build. Beware
of "infiltrators", occasional thrall or such that try to
build in your territory. Occasionally enemies may also send
bats or harpies on an end-run attack.
Keep converting or destroying enemy buildings. Get the hero
into the middle of the town while the rest of you take out
the towers. Take out one, then the other town (the one to
west is much larger than this small one across that little
bridge). Convert works much better... Go after defense
towers and the rest of town becomes vulnerable.
If you got seriously hurt, back off and group heal. Your
main camp should be building more units and some towers to
help you secure the gap. Retreat your task force all the way
to your towers if needed.
Repeat until the Minotaur threat has been eliminated.
Build Strategy: You need 2 or more peasants in your starting
force. Secure the gap by moving your entire party east, past
the shrine, and build near the gap. If you build to west the
units will take too long to plug the gap. Instead, build
your keep and such near the gap. Start with palace and two
towers. Use your white mage and hero to convert some
quarries to get some rocks and such and keep things
supplied. Keep the forces between the gap and your
buildings. Build up the base and keep converting more
resources. If Minotaurs attack, send white mage in to heal
your defenders.
Once the gap is secured (two or more towers), add one tower
near each group of mines. You will see some bats sneak
through, and the towers with squires will take care of them.
Add some squires and spread them out just in case other bats
sneak through. Keep that gap secure! Enemy has two heroes
that will attack, along with minotaurs and basilisks. They
may also sneak some bats through, along with occasional
thralls that will attempt to build south of the gap in your
territory.
To prevent the thralls from establishing a foothold on your
side of map, send out squires in groups of 2 and explore the
map on your side. Have a reaction force ready to deal with
any interlopers.
Now it's time to really build your army up. Build
everything... Cathedral, knights, research everything,
upgrade to level 4 keep and build the library and train some
white mages. Then build up the army you've always dreamed of
and blast them all!
Start building attack groups of knights, squires, and a
white mage (to keep them healed). A group of 4 knights, 6
squires, and a white mage is nearly unstoppable.
17.1.6 Aelfwine
Briefing: Elana needs to locate Aelfwine, who's in the caves
to the northeast corner. You must get Elana to the door of
the cave.
Map Layout: You start on the southwest corner again. There
are minotaurs to the north, and orcs to the east.
Starting Units: 1 peasant, your white mage, the rest in
pikemen and squires
The Minotaurs are dug in with towers, but the orcs are not,
so you should attack the orcs first.
Start building palace, then barracks. You need some
reinforcements ASAP. Send your hero and white mage out to
convert those resources, expand EAST, NOT north. North means
it you get the attention of the minotaurs, which is bad, as
you are not ready for them.
Expand east, and you'll see more resources. Convert those as
well. Send hero back to camp. Send white mage, along with
your "strike group" east. Consider using a peasant to "wall
off" the northern part to help you defend against minotaur
raids, if any. Don't forget to add towers and such.
Continue east, and slight north, and you'll see the
mausoleum. Northeast of that is the Orc camp. If you see the
Orc hero, kill it ASAP. Keep building units and blast or
convert the orc camp. Remember, converting those buildings,
even if you can't use them, raises your army limit. Blast
any defense towers, then convert everything. Don't chase the
orcs too far though, you don't want to attract the attention
of the minotaurs yet.
Once you've defeated the orcs, the minotaurs may be getting
restless. While you deal with the Orc camp, build towers to
help you defend the area. Upgrade to knights and such and
build up your forces, repulse any attacks. Upgrade to level
4 keep. Research all the good stuff (you should have all the
resources you need now).
Watch for any thralls and such that escaped the onslaught.
They may try to build near you. Attack and destroy them.
When you build up a good attack force, go north from the
camp and destroy any minotaurs and basilisks nearby. Then
head north through the gap, and convert those resources. Be
sure you have a GOOD force, as you will see some minotaur
kings soon, which are REALLY nasty. Once your force is
ready, continue to the "gate", and blast it down. Then clean
out ALL the minotaurs nearby... One's up on that "plaza" to
northwest corner, others are near the northern edge.
Once you've cleaned out the area, build some escorts and
escort Elana north to the cave. You'll have to go north,
then east, across the bridge.
Once there, you find Aelfwine, and you are victorious!
17.1.7 Return to Asgaard
Briefing: You've located Aelfwine, and you need to return
with him to Asgaard. There is a HORDE of undead in your way.
If you can get someone to the gates of Asgaard, a troop of
knights will come out and assist you. There is no
construction in this mission.
Map Layout: you start on the east side of the map, but the
tower you need to go is on the west side, and in between are
HORDES of undead, well over 200 total. However, all is NOT
lost. Remember, undead have no brain.
Starting Retinue: You REQUIRE a white mage for this. The
rest can be a mix of pikemen and squires as you see fit.
You get a few "reinforcements", peasants, when you visit
each hut with your hero. In mobs, peasants can still be
deadly.
You will need to do the "Minos bait" routine. Line the
peasants and pikemen and your hero up front. Squires
(including Robert) and mages in the back (including Elana,
Aelfwine, and your white mage). Set EVERYBODY to "guardian".
Then send Minos forward to the bridge to "tease" a few
skeletons over, and let the mages and such kill them. Repeat
until you clear the bridge.
Just across the bridge is the hard part... You must pass
through this "valley", which has one tower on both north and
south side, and a bunch of wraiths and skeletons near each
tower, AND a force in the middle blocking you.
Again, setup the "Minos Bait". Tease the blocking group
toward your firepower. Repeat for those guarding the towers.
If Minos gets hurt, use the white mage to heal him. Repeat
until there are no more units around.
Now RUSH the tower, either one is fine. You will lose
several peasants, but you can take down the tower. You just
need to take down one (I prefer the northern one). Keep
everybody on the plateau. Line up the shooters on the "edge"
(squires, mages), line up the peasants behind them to make
SURE they don't move.
Again, send Minos down and tease those undead units toward
your firepower. Repeat until you clean out that road leading
northwest toward Asgaard. This will take a white, but quite
doable. If you need more peasants, you can find more huts to
the south.
As you reach the castle, a group of knights will appear in
front of the gates. Just get Aelfwine to the gate and you're
all done!
17.1.8 Aelfwine's Arrival (Video)
Cinematic: Aelfwine is working on translating the
prophecy... All he can tell you is that the two meteors are
called "two Tears" in the prophecy. The rest... Will have to
wait.
17.2 CHAPTER 2 : THE TWO TEARS
17.2.1 Scouting the Land
Briefing: Paridius has ordered you to scout the land in
search of the origin of the Undead that is plaguing the
area. You will take available units (Dwarf Runners and
Squires) and locate the Undead "camp".
Map Layout: You start in the southeast corner, where
Esgaarde stands. There's a mountain range blocking off
access to the north, with two passes, one east and one west.
The undead camp is SOMEWHERE out there, lots of forests, no
river.
Starting Units: As you can't build, there is no reason to
bring any peasants. Bring White Mage, plus some high-powered
units for your offense.
TIP: "Locate" the camp means get ONE unit inside the enemy
camp. It doesn't matter if he dies 5 seconds later. As soon
as you get one unit inside, you win. The question is... what
constitutes a "camp"? But you'll know it when you see it.
Group all your units into 1 group and start heading west.
You can go north through the western pass. You will
encounter some orcs (in ones and twos) in the forest. Just
destroy them as you have so much firepower they won't last a
second. Destroy any undead you see as well. You should be
able to do this without losing any units. If you're not
sure, have the group stand still and use Minos to lure the
enemy back toward the group.
Once you passed the mountain range, start exploring east.
You are looking for two "magic mushroom circles" inside the
forest. When your hero steps inside, one of them produces 2
sprites, and the other 2 unicorns, both are good units
(though unicorn is a lot better). Kill anyone in your way by
luring them back to group.
Once you found the unicorn, their higher speed make them the
logical bait instead of Minos. They also have very good
combat ratings.
Return to the gate, and head directly north. When you start
to see a tower or two, you're getting close to the Undead
camp.
You'll need to raze several towers, and you WILL lose units,
but make them count, as you aren't getting any more units.
When ready, send EVERYBODY in and wipe out the tower,
preferably one alone by itself so no other tower can help.
Use the unicorns as scouts. If they get hit, bring them back
to be healed, then send them out again.
Keep wiping out towers going north until you see a plateau,
on top of which is the undead camp. Unfortunately, it has a
liche, the undead hero, plus a HORDE of skeletons, plus a
slayer knight and some wights (and a zombie or two). It also
has two towers guarding the entrance. You need to basically
CHARGE in there, wipe out two towers, and RETREAT to
regroup. Heal everybody, then send in the unicorn as bait,
tease the enemy units out for your group of squires and
other shooters (including Elana and your white mage).
This will require a LOT of patience, but it can be done.
Repeat until the unicorn can enter the plateau, and you win!
17.2.2 Orcgate
Briefing: You need to find your way into the mountains of
the north, which may contain some shards of the blue tear...
However, the Orcgate is in the area, and the Undead are
fighting with the Orcs... Destroy all of them.
Map Layout: you have several mines to your east and west. To
northeast are the Orcs and to northwest are the Undead.
There's a mausoleum to the west. There's a chest to your
east and west, which may or may not contain goodies.
Retinue: You may want an eagle for initial scouting and
early warning. The rest you can start with peasants and some
pikemen and such.
There really isn't much of a trick to this... Just build,
build, and build! Just protect your mines against the
occasional raids, and you can let the Orcs and the Undead
fight each other while you grow all the way up to level 5
keep and build the unstoppable army.
On higher difficulty levels, you may need to take Elana's
advice... Lure some units out of one camp into the other,
and get out of the way and let them fight each other to
death while you just to ready to clean up the mess. Send a
suicide force as double-bait. Basically, keep them busy
while you build up your army. Even if you send in a suicide
team, go after their structures and such, even out the
sides. If one side is stronger, attack that side, and lure
the response to the other camp.
If you start with an eagle, keep it near the middle to watch
for raiders so you can rush units to respond. Keep building,
building, building...
When you think you destroyed everybody, but the game doesn't
end, there's probably another thrall or such roaming the
landscape trying to rebuild that one keep... Send out some
eagles to scout for that last one, and blast it to pieces,
and kill the thrall.
17.2.3 The Blue Shard
Briefing: You have gotten past the Orcgate, but the Undead
is very strong here. You are surrounded on 3 sides by
Undead. Defeat them and find their source of power (i.e. the
blue shard)
Map Layout: You start on the southern end of the map. Just
north of you are 3 mausoleums. You have mines to east and
west. To northeast, north, and northwest of you are the 3
Undead camps. You need to defeat them all, and to claim the
blue shard for yourself...
Start by building up ASAP. You need level 2 palace to get
stables up and running. You have a cathedral just west of
you, so convert that and you can start building knights
(yes, that fast). You don't really need Eyrie but the eagles
help somewhat in scouting. However, enemy uses quite a few
bats.
Build, build, and build. Build multiple stables to get more
knights out (3 at least). Put all the peasants you can into
the mines to keep the gold coming. Keep upgrading the keep
as you need more mages to sustain your combat. You will need
quite a few pikemen and squires as you initial guards.
Undead WILL raid you with heroes, wights, slayer knights,
skeletons, bats, and zombies. I even saw a Daemon once. They
come from both east and west, but only once through the
middle. West side seems to attack more often.
Defend yourself against the raids, and research those skills
at the Cathedral like triple damage against undead and so
on. Those knights will be unstoppable. Undead will be
building as well... They will have built library and such.
You can build catapults now so use those for long range
demolition (beyond visible range!) Just line up the troops
in front of the catapult and wait...
Clean out the entire map, convert all the mines to your
side, then walk your hero up to that hole in the ground with
the blue shard... He'll mumble something about taking it
back to General Paridian, and you win!
17.2.4 Translation (Video)
Cinematic: Master Aelfwine has finally finished the
translation... The two "Tears" are Navarre (white) and
Lucifus (red). They bring great power, but great misfortune.
They must be destroyed, but NOT by the hands of man. Such is
the riddle...
17.2.5 The Library
Briefing: Locate the ancient library 2 days west from
Esgaard Towers. Explore it with your hero and Elana. All
special characters must survive. No construction in this
scenario.
Map layout: You start in the east, west is unknown. To the
south there is water. There is an island in the southeastern
corner that has 4 special items you may wish to investigate.
The library is on the northwestern corner.
You have a long way to go. Between you and the destination
are 3 orc heroes and their units. You can kill plenty of
orcs on the way.
Some may suggest going by sea. It's actually a bad idea
since the beaches are ringed with towers and units. You will
lose quite a few if you try it that way. You don't need to
fight any towers if you go by land, and you shouldn't lose
any units unless you encounter an Ogre or such nasty units
throwing sheep and more.
You have several friendly defense towers nearby. If you
visit each one, you'll get pikemen and squires. Not all of
them give you free units though.
Convert the shipyard while you're at it. Even if you don't
use it, why leave it to someone else? Build a ferry there
and carry the hero to the island and grab those special
items.
Start by following the road and head west. When you see a
road sign, follow the road sign. Avoid enemy towers. Use
Minos as "scout". Lure Orcs back to your main group to be
killed. Repeat as you make your way down the road. Avoid the
towers.
Eventually you make your way to the library. Robert remarks
that the library is in ruins, and Orcs are all over it,
including Ogre, Troll, hero, and goblins. Again, setup your
group in ambush, then use Minos to lure small groups out for
you to kill. Heal any damage, repeat until you clean the
place out.
Have your hero and Elana run around the library. You'll get
some dialog about finding something, then something else,
and voila, you win! (If you don't get it, keep moving them
from spot to spot all around the library.)
17.2.6 Siege of Guardia
Briefing: Towers of Guardia is under attack. You must make
ALL HASTE to Guardia and prevent the Undead from taking
Guardia. Reinforcements will arrive from Esgaard in 40
minutes. You MUST hold out until then.
Map Layout: you are in the south. Guardia is southwest of
you. A ridge containing a mausoleum divides that up into 2
"passes" you can defend.
The WORST attack will come from the eastern pass, while some
minor raids will come from the western pass.
Basically, build, build and build! Quickly upgrade your keep
to level 2, and start building towers to close off those
passes. Build barracks and quickly pump out some pikemen and
squires to hold the line, use your hero if necessary. You
need the market and "trade" skill to convert the excess
resources into resource you need.
Do the usual thing: add peasants into the mines you really
need (usually gold). Reinforce each tower with 2 pikemen and
2 squires. Add some towers on the ridge with the mausoleum,
then 3 towers in the eastern pass and 2 towers in the
western pass.
Quickly upgrade to level 3 keep and build your cathedral,
then get those knights out. Research those knight upgrades,
esp. that triple-damage-against-undead one. Build 3-4
stables and get those knights made! They are your best
undead killer. Build up library and make a white mage or
two. Use one to anchor each side of defense. Add squires to
back up the defense. Put some on the ridge, others behind
the tower.
When there's about 5-7 minutes left, the big attack will
come... Lots of wraiths, then lots of liches (the worst
part), then lots of slayer knights. Your towers and your
knights, with the squires running backup, should be able to
defeat all the waves.
If you got a lot of knights left after defeating the
attacks, feel free to set the knights loose and wipe out the
enemy structures before the time runs out, for extra credit.
17.2.7 The Undead Column
Briefing: In the plains north of Esgaard, Paridian has a
plan to deal with the Undead... you need to survive 30
minutes of continual Undead attacks. However, Paridian plan
means Elana was sent out ALONE as bait for the Undead...
Map Layout: You start on the south side of the map. To the
north are two plateaus forming a valley through which ALL
undead must pass. On the north end of this valley are four
towers shooting magical bolts, and 2 item chests. Just north
of your position is a dragon temple, where you can recruit
several dragon knights. If you explore the 2 white trees
just south of the temple you can also locate several
treants.
Retinue: bring the white mage, as usual, and a peasant. You
should be able to bring a knight or two as well. You'll need
their firepower early on.
Send your hero north to the dragon temple and get those
treants and dragon knights. They, along with your few
starting knights, are your initial defense forces. Send them
to the southern mouth of the valley and keep them there.
Explore east and west with your hero and mage (separate
directions), and convert those mines ASAP. You will be SHORT
on gold initially. Build your palace and barracks ASAP and
pump out some squires. Send them north and line them up on
both sides of the valley with "guardian" attitude. This is
the "valley of death" for the undead.
Keep building with the peasant and/or hero and find more
mines to convert. Build a second palace on the other side of
the map to help you pump out enough peasants for more gold
at the mines, as the first one is busy upgrading. Build
cathedral so you can get more knights to reinforce those few
you got. Research that triple-damage against undead upgrade.
Line the knights up at the valley mouth and don't let them
move. Consider building a library, as you need the catapult
to take down those 4 towers, as well as additional white
mages. Build multiple stables to get more knights.
You will see plenty more of undead waves, with liches,
skeletons, wights, etc. However, if you have enough knights
you can repulse them easily. Then just have the white mage
heal everybody.
There are two shrines to north, just south of the towers,
and Elana's body. However, you can't do anything with it
yet. Just wait for the timer to run out. Don't accept any
"convert building" missions as you can't convert enemy
towers and there are no other enemy buildings to convert.
When there's like 5 minutes left, the final wave of Undead
will attack... Slayer Knights, Liches, Wights, and LOTS of
skeletons start marching down the road. Defeat them all, and
feel free to destroy all those four towers (you will take
casualties though). When the time runs out, you win!
17.2.8 Death of Elana (Video)
Cinematic: Paridian was so heartless in sending out Elana to
be bait and got her killed... Does the ends justify the
means? Or will following Paridian be your best chance to
recover the Two Tears?
This is your turning point... Do you split from Paridian and
chase down the Two Tears yourself, or do you continue to
follow Paridian in search of the Two Tears for Esgaard?
If you continue to follow Paridian, go to [7.3], path of
light.
If you split from Paridian, go to [7.5], path of darkness.
17.3 CHAPTER THREE: THE PROTECTOR (PATH OF LIGHT)
17.3.1 Dwarf Caravan
You are heading north into dwarf territory... Robert, sick
with Paridian's offhand sacrifice of Elana, has left the
party. While you have your reservations about Paridian, you
believe that once you secure Navarre, the white Tear, you
may be able to bring Elana back to life... But first, the
Dwarf caravan is under attack...
Briefing: Rescue the Dwarf Caravan. All your special units
(your hero and Minos) must survive.
Map Layout: Dwarf Caravan is in the middle of the map, under
siege by the orcs in the northeastern corner, who has lots
of towers, and will send lots of Ogres, Giants, Trolls, and
so on.
Retinue: white mage, then whatever you want.
NOTE: Do NOT send forces into the dwarf camp until you're
ready. Doing so triggers Orc attack. In fact, don't even
move north of the dwarf camp. They have enough fighters and
crossbow-ers to defend themselves for a while. Just keep
building.
Start building immediately. There are some mines next to
you, and more mines to east (2 more on the seashore). Send
mage out to convert those, while your peasants and hero
build, build, and build. Build up a set of defense towers
where the trees limit the movement, orienting mainly
northeast.
Quickly build 2-3 stables and start working on knights.
Upgrade, upgrade, upgrade! You need flaming arrows in those
towers. Enemy may send a flock of bats/harpies to raid your
buildings and mines. Squires will take them out, esp.
flaming arrows. Knights will act as reserve to block any
breakthroughs.
When you got 4-6 towers up, defense should be quite tough
that even dragons should be no problem for you. Start
building up groups of knights with squires and send THEM to
raid Orc camps... Send them up the east coast. Send another
group into the Dwarf camp to help them defend. Take out
towers, then others, retreat when the enemy responds. Lure
them back to the Dwarves and/or the towers and slaughter
them.
Keep repeating the raids until the orc camp is reduced to
rubble. Keep a reserve at your camp to react to any last-
ditch attacks by the orcs. Build towers and squires to
assist in defense. Upgrade those knights (don't need the
triple-damage-against-undead upgrade). Build a dragon or two
if you feel like it. Watch out for new palaces being built
elsewhere.
When you defeat all the orcs, you win! There may be some
leftover totem poles or something on the map if the scenario
doesn't seem to end and you thought you destroyed
everything. Send out some flying scouts and find the
leftovers.
17.3.2 Mountain Trails
Briefing: You are now in command of the dwarves, who will
help you seek the seer far in the northern mountains.
However, in your way are no less than FOUR Orc heroes, all
of them want you dead. However, they will also fight each
other if given the chance.
Map Layout: You are in the southeastern corner. Enemies are
to west, north, northwest, and center.
This will be your toughest challenge yet, as you must now
learn the dwarf buildings and units, while you fend off all
those orc attacks. You don't quite have enough mines around
the starting position, but it'll have to do for now. Build
palace, upgrade, upgrade.
Quickly churn out a couple dwarf fighters and crossbowers,
and send this group north, all the way north, so you can
take on that guy in the northeastern corner. That guy is
easily beaten, and you will have HIS mines to work with as
well. Build towers and such to secure the area. You only
need to build ONE inn to benefit. Build more barracks and
one more smithy up north to keep the dwarven smiths coming.
Remember, dwarven smiths counts DOUBLE when put into mines.
Watch your resources, as you will run SEVERELY short on ore
and stone esp. in the middle part of the build. You will
need a market with "trade" skill to balance some of that.
Having those mines in the north help somewhat.
Try to stay out of the way of the Orcs, as they will fight
amongst themselves when they have the chance. However, when
they finish consolidating (or even before) they come after
you. So you better have those defenses ready. Have some
heavy weapons like ballistas and catapults ready in both
camps, as they do lots of damage against those large units
like giants, trolls, and ogres.
The dwarven towers are too weak to be useful. Build HUMAN
towers (under the towers and walls menu, not the building
menu) which lasts longer under enemy attacks. Build two
dwarven towers BEHIND the human tower to lend support.
Remember to reinforce with crossbowers and fighters. Don't
build your towers too tight or your ballistas, battering
rams, and catapults can't get out!
Put some crossbowers on those ridges surrounding the middle
cave. Set them on defensive, so they shoot, but they don't
chase. They can wipe out a lot of orcs firing from that high
up.
When you are ready, it's time to deal with the enemies one
at a time. I personally like to send in a FLEET of griffons
(10 of them) and they'll just clean out enemy structures in
a flash. Use them to raid enemy structures. Bring them back
to be healed by your white mage.
Consolidate the two small mines on the east side of the map,
then start pushing west from north, then south. Remember to
use the "drunkenness" special during the fight! Bring some
heavy artillery to deal with enemy structures. If the
enemy's too hot to handle, retreat to the towers. Heal, then
move back in. Convert any mines you see. Continue the push
and surround the middle red caves after cleaning out
everybody. Then clean out the middle.
When you've wiped out every single Orc, you win!
17.3.3 Guardians of the Seer
Briefing: We're getting close to the seer, but in our way
are minotaurs AND orcs. You must find out what are driving
the Minotaurs wild, and locate the entrance to seer's
cave... (And obviously, your hero and Minos must survive).
Map layout: the map is divided by a sEyries of ridges that
leads to other parts of the map. You start in the
southeastern corner, and of course, the seer's cave is to
the northwest.
Retinue: you need your white mage, and some other starting
units.
Initial concern: You need towers to survive the initial
attacks. They WILL raid you. Once you build enough towers to
handle the initial attack, The rest of the campaign can be
handled via air attacks.
After the conversation, start building ASAP. Pluck down the
palace, and send the two heroes to convert the mines to
north and west. After palace is down, upgrade the palace,
and start building barracks and towers. Start with dwarf
towers (cheaper), but backstop them when you can with human
towers.
Dwarf use smithy to produce the siege weapons and dwarf
smiths, so the production of siege units will be slow unless
you have multiple smithies online. Those will have to wait.
Build THREE barracks, as you need LOTS of units. Get some
fighters and crossbowers out there ASAP.
There are some towers just north of you, destroy them with
siege weapons when you have a chance. In the meanwhile, your
hero can get out there and convert some mines nearby.
Remember to get OUT of range of the tower before you
convert.
Build up everything, then it's time to decide on attack
strategy, when your defenses are set.
If you prefer air attacks (and it is indeed the preferred
way), build up a set of 3-4 Eyries. Then build a large group
of griffons (say, 8-10), and just start SWEEPING the map of
enemy mines and structures. When they're like half-damaged,
bring them back to be healed, and send them out AGAIN. In
the meanwhile, upgrade the Eyries to level 3 and start
making dragons. You need 3 of them to build the unstoppable
force.
If you prefer ground attacks, get your barracks setup to
produce a good stream of berserkers and crossbowers, backed
by a couple of siege weapons.
Keep raiding the mines near you, then explore further and
further away from your towers. Destroying the mines not only
give you a quick resource boost, it also deprives the enemy
of their steady income. If you need some more income, build
some dwarf lords with escorts (berserkers and crossbowers)
and send them out on conversion trips, leave some mines
nearby that are good for your use. Chase down enemy heroes,
thralls and such that may be building all around you using
other air units.
Eventually near the northeastern enemy (directly north of
your starting position) you'll find the red shard. By this
time, your dragons should be done. If you have too many
units, kill off some of the siege machines and cheap units
to make room for the dragons. Then sweep the map with your
unstoppable force.
If you prefer not to fight that hard (or playing at higher
difficulty levels), sneak your hero with retinue north to
the red shard, then back to your camp. Then work your way
west, then north to the seer's cave. Raid west into the
enemy camp, clean him out to make way for your hero.
You may find a hostile dragon near the seer's cave. Use your
dragon force to take him out if you build one. Your griffins
are afraid of dragons. Else, just RUN really fast. One
dragon can't do THAT much damage to your hero.
Once your hero steps across the bridge onto the seer land
(after finding the red shard), you win!
17.3.4 Visiting the Seer (Video)
The seer knows where the Two Tears are... both are held by
the Dark Elves, beyond the Darkwall Mountains... As for how
they can be destroyed... Just smash them together...
However, that may be the problem...
17.3.5 The Red Maw
Briefing: You've made your way back to Esgaard without
further problems. Your next task is to get through Guardian
pass, where the enemies await... No building, no retinue.
Map Layout: this is a maze, and full of assassins, each of
which can kill you by luck. Your exit is on the western end,
in the middle... With a Dark Elf hero and 2 assassins
guarding it.
NOTE: the map didn't tell you that in EACH of the mines (and
there are half dozen of them north and south of Esgaard) you
can get some dwarf runners, best used as "bait" for those
assassins.
There really isn't too much of a trick to this. Use dwarf
runner to lure the assassins out of position, so your group
can get through. Then when you finally get to the exit, save
the game, and try to lure the dark elf hero AND the
assassins out of position while your hero and Minos step
through the gate. Expect to retry this a couple times before
you get the hang of it.
To get to the exit, go west into the maze, then turn north.
When you see that first assassin to northwest, use a runner
to lure him east into the corner so you can slip past.
Keep heading northwest/north. You'll see a couple bats next
to that small hill, and to northwest of that, more assasins.
Again, use a runner to lure them out of position.
Continue head northwest, until you're almost on the northern
edge of the map. If you're careful, you'll see assassins
both to northeast and northwest. Head southeast. Then send a
single dwarf southwest, THEN southwest (not the passage
leading south, but the one west of that). You'll see FOUR
assassins. Hold there. Get two MORE dwarves into position so
when the closest dies, the assassins will keep chasing the
next further. You need to get those 4 assassins out of
position, all the way into that pocket west of you.
Once the 4 assassins are inside that pocket, you should have
4 or more dwarves left. Move your hero and Minos closer. Use
a single dwarf to lure the enemy hero toward your hero so
your team can ambush the Dark Elf hero. She should go down
quickly, and you should still have 3 dwarves left, maybe
more.
There are two more assassins left behind the enemy hero.
Move your heroes east out of range, then repeat the dwarf
bait maneuver and lure them out of position, then your hero
and Minos just RUN through the gate, and you win!
17.3.6 Towards Archanon
Briefing: The dark elves and the orcs are in your way toward
Archanon. Lead your human army past them. Minos and your
hero must survive.
Map layout: You start in the southeastern corner again. The
dark elves are to the northwest. A whole SEYRIES of Orc
towers runs the diagonal of the map, northeast to southwest.
You have some mines near you, but you're going to be a
little short unless you start exploring north and west
immediately.
NOTE: There's a cache of 7 goodie chests in the middle of
the map, protected by orcs, giants, trolls, and more.
NOTE: the Orcs don't build, but the dark elves do...
Retinue: you will need some heavy firepower immediately as
the dark elf hero will raid you. White mage, then some heavy
hitters like archon, knight, reaver, moonguard, etc. should
be enough to protect you for now.
Overall strategy: Same as before... Build up a group of
knights, and send them on raids. Destroy the orcs, starting
from a corner, then get through and clean up the dark elves.
Then come back and clean up all the orc towers.
This is a battle of attrition, so if you can build enough
towers and squires to prevent the enemy from destroying
while you build up your knights, you should win. It sure
would help if you get those special skills like knight
commander.
You will need a ring of towers, 3 or 4 facing northwest, to
defend against the raids, but you need to keep upgrading
your stuff as well. You can probably forget making aerial
attacks of your own as you are short on just about
everything. Besides, dark elves have plenty of magic towers
as defense.
Clean up the map, starting with southwestern corner, then
work your way up the diagonal until you see this hill. Stop
there, as the Orcs don't grow, while the dark elves do.
Start using that gap to send up raiding teams of squires and
knights. Destroy their mines, then their structures,
concentrate on towers. When they're pretty hurt, bring them
back and heal them, then send them out again. Maybe have a
white mage stand by there with some protection.
Repeat until the dark elves are history. Then clean up the
Orcs. destroy everybody, and you win!
17.3.7 Archanon
Briefing: Destroy Tower of Archanon and capture Navarre, the
white Tear. Destroy all dark elves in your way. Expect
dragon presence.
Map layout: you start in the southeastern corner again.
There are LOTS of nasties, mainly to north, but also center
of map. Two shrines on east and west edge of the map. Two
sets of mines close by, one just northwest of you, the other
further west. They have a LOT of mines, so be ready.
NOTE: One interesting fact is the enemy will produce dragons
after 20 or so minutes. You better have hefty defenses ready
by then. Ballistas and towers are good.
NOTE: AVOID the center initially, as the dark elves holding
that section (they're in RED) have sorcerers that can wipe
out your squires. You need a GOOD group of knights and maybe
a dragon or two to defeat them.
Overall strategy: if you can build a set of towers to
destroy dragons and a full set of squires (with flaming
arrows) to defeat other attacks, and a full set of upgraded
knights, you should have no problem. The problem is getting
all this done BEFORE you got overrun by enemy attacks, and
enough resources to build them all.
Consider building more than one palace immediately, one to
get upgrades, the other to produce more peasants to man the
mines. Then build multiple barracks, and later, stables.
Don't box yourself in and run out of room. Leave enough room
for siege weapons to get out, if necessary. Put the towers
further out to north and west, but don't get too close to
the center with the red dark elves... You need to carve out
your own little "niche". Only put guards (2 pikemen and 2
squires) in the tower that is most often attacked, and they
will come. Consider building one or two towers on that
plateau with 4 mines, and put some squires up there as well.
Dark Elves often send phoenixes and try to convert your
mines, and you need to take them out.
You need to get those towers up soon. That timer on top is
the time until the next dragon's hatched. And you need
flaming arrows and towers and lots of squires to take out a
dragon (plus misc. flyers).
You will need more than one stable, probably 3, but worry
about that later. Enemy heroes will try to convert the mines
to the west. Consider building a palace out west and some
towers to protect that patch. Still, you will be REALLY
short on gold. Having a market with trade researched will
help slightly, but not enough.
If you can handle the dragons, then it's time to decide on
either aerial assault or cavalry charge. If you have knight
command special skill, then knights are cheaper, so build a
LOT of them, allocate like 10 per group, add a couple
archers and maybe a white mage, and send them out to raid.
Go west, then north. Another group can go north, then west.
Start reducing enemy structures, and use the white mage to
convert enemy mines that you see.
Sooner or later, you'll whittle them down, by building up
the knights into an unstoppable force. While they'll run
from dragons, just lure the dragon back to your towers.
Blast everything, kill all those "wisps" running around, and
you win!
17.3.8 Resurrection (Video)
Cinematic: With Navarre in your hands, Elana was
resurrected... However, you reluctantly turn back as Lucifus
is too deep in enemy territory, across the ocean... And you
return to Guardia...
17.4 CHAPTER FOUR: JUSTICE (PATH OF LIGHT)
17.4.1 Thieves
Briefing: Paridian has stripped you of your rank, and has
quietly let out word that you should be killed, along with
Elana. Elana offers you a better alternative... Steal
Navarre, the white Tear, and escape with her to her
homeland, the Wood Elf country... No building.
Map Layout: the tents around the area either produce
friendlies or hostiles, usually only 2 at a time. Your
"exit" is to the east, along that "road". The Tear... is for
you to find, but I suggest north.
Retinue: firepower, the heavier the better. A white mage is
critical. Else, a high hitpoint unit like a knight would be
great.
After Paridian and Minos runs off, start exploring the
tents. You need squires, though pikemen are also good. By
now, your hero should be a killing machine. Send him to
explore the tents, kill hostiles. Don't get too close to
other enemy units. The idea is to fight as few as possible,
so you have a chance to heal in between the fights.
Slowly work your way to north-northeast. When you see like
three or four tents together in a circle with a goodie box
in the middle, that's the place. Tease the enemies out, esp.
knights, back to your group to be killed. Clear the area
around the tents slowly. Heal and repeat. There's an enemy
hero there: Sir Edgar. lure him back to your group and wipe
him out. Then head inside and grab the tear.
When you get the tear, head back to the group, then head
east until you see the bunch fo forests, then south. Again,
slowly clear your way southeast, until you get back to the
road. You'll probably find groups of 6-7 pikemen in your
way. Tease them and separate them, then kill them.
When you make it to the eastern edge of the map on the road,
you win!
17.4.2 Into Palmyr
Briefing: You're in Barbarian country... You get a couple
Barbarian riders from King Baragon... With that, you need to
clean out the Orcs (two separate tribes). You now command
the Barbarians.
May layout: You start on the southwest corner. You will be
attacked on two sides... north, and east.
Retinue: none...
Overall strategy: Build up enough towers and such to guard
against enemy hero raids from the north first. Then expand
east, convert the mines, and secure the other bridge with
more towers. Build LOTS of units, as barbarian units die
easily. Upgrade all you can, as you need those minotaur
units. Regular barbarian infantry is pretty weak. Once you
got both bridges secured, THEN you can pursue the enemy to
northeast and northwest. I think the northwestern enemy is
easier as he's closer.
NOTE: Barbarians want LOTS of ore, not gold.
NOTE: Beware of enemy doing long-range deep strikes with a
group of bats. Fight back with a group of pegasi.
NOTE: Barbarians defaults to AGGRESSIVE attitude, which
means they chase enemies down. Set them to "defensive" ASAP.
NOTE: Reavers can convert buildings. Send those out and
convert with them.
Upgrade keep quickly, multiple levels, and build at LEAST 3,
maybe 4 arenas, and start pumping out the riders. You need a
lot of them to hold the tide. Also build those towers near
the bridge as early warning. Keep building units and set
rally point near the bridge, and keep building towers.
Send hero east and convert the shipyard, and the mines. Send
some help when you can, as the enemy will attack from the
east soon. Start making upgrade buildings like henge and so
on so you can get some minotaurs up and running. You'll
probably also need a market as you'll be running short on
ore. Keep heading east unless you're seriously wounded, then
return. With no retinue, you can't heal a lot of damage, so
try not to get into a big fight with your hero.
Continue east and convert more mines. Bring a thrall or two
and build towers to secure the other bridge. Start building
Eyries to make pegasus, your best air unit besides the
dragon, and probably your primary air defense except for
Robert and those spear throwers.
Now it's time to push them back. Build up a big group of
minotaurs and riders, and pegasi, then send them northwest,
across the western bridge, and start on the towers, then
just let them attack whatever they want, but towers first.
Then take out the ziggurat, which will cripple storage, then
the arenas. If they all die, just replace them. Once you've
taken out the northwest group, send some thralls there to
build a new base and make more units as replacement. Don't
forget to convert all the mines nearby! Now you should have
NO resource shortage at all.
There's a "navy" just east of the northwestern orc camp.
You'll probably want some dragons to take those out, as
those cruisers have nice arrows. On the other hand, if you
have a LARGE group of spearmen you CAN take them out... With
heavy casualties of course. You can convert the shipyard
from outside the ship's range if you want.
Then it's just a matter of building enough units to destroy
the remaining orc stronghold. With attacks from two sides,
it will fall quickly, but consider holding out until your
hero has a chance to explore all the goodie boxes around the
map. There's at least one to northwest, two to east, and
maybe more.
17.4.3 The Orb of Souls
Briefing: You need to make your way to the "Orb of Souls" a
temple where Elana believes she can find the wood elve
leader Kaari that will lead you to the Woof Elves home.
Map Layout: You start on the southwest corner. Minotaurs are
to your east and north, and the temple is to the northwest,
with quite a few elven archers in the forests as protection.
Retinue: Bring a white mage, please! Add other units as you
see fit.
Overall strategy: You need to take care of the minotaurs
first, and this may be a surprise, but you need to
blitzekreig one of them immediately. THEN you can take your
time to build up enough armies to crush the other one, with
TWO sets of mines (the ones near your starting position AND
the eastern mines). Then finally, wipe out the elves in your
way.
Take ALL of your units and move east. When you see a group
of 3 or 4 mines, let your hero convert it.
Continue east and go after towers. Use the white mage to
heal so your troops last longer in combat. If you run into
the enemy hero, go after him! Keep driving east. Take out
his offensive units and towers, and convert his buildings.
Take his keep for your own. As you attacked him this early,
he has NO units other than his hero and maybe one or two
units, so he should be easy pickings.
As barbarians, you need gold, then rock. You don't need that
much crystals until you get altar, so get the market
cranking. You should have plenty of ores around. Convert his
arenas, and build your own. You'll need 3 arenas. Build
corals to build up a set of riders. Start upgrading the
keep, and build a second one in order to pump out more
workers for the mines.
The other minotaur hero will probably stay pretty far away,
as he's looking for easier pickings. By taking out the
eastern guy in a blitzkreig, you should be safe for a while.
Build, build, and build, then heal, and take out all nearby
towers. If you've previously killed the hero, then this guy
is toast, unless you left a thrall alive somewhere.
Start building an airforce of pegasi, figure 9-12 of them.
Make at least 3 EEyries and upgrade them when you can. Send
a force to the shrine where you converted those mines. The
northwestern force usually raids through there, and you can
intercept him there. Use cavalry only as everybody else is
too slow. Add some minotaurs when you have the chance as
barbarians have no infantry. In fact, try this ambush
tactic: use minotaurs as front attack force, keep cavalry on
the edges. When the enemy hero engages the minotaurs, sweep
the cavalry from the back. Caught in a pincer, the enemy
hero will either flee or die.
Start exploring west, then north with your pegasi, and
expand your base that way. Send hero with lots of minotaurs
and riders. Explore and convert those mines you were forced
to initially abandon. Your force should be now big enough to
easily repel any attack. Build more arena there to support
more units. Then head north slowly, heal when needed, and
start taking down the defenses of that remaining minotaur,
and convert the minotaur buildings for your own. Kill the
hero when you see him. That's it for all the active threats.
When you've taken out both minotaurs, it's just the wood
elves in your way... And they don't attack. So heal your air
force and your ground force, and send them in to clean out
the entire map. Build a couple dragons if you like. Once you
clean out the entire map, you win!
If you prefer not to kill everybody, take your hero and
Elana, and a full set of guards, and head to the northwest
corner. Then move east. There is an entrance to the "Orb of
Souls" from the west where Elana and your hero can enter.
17.4.4 Fleet of Solhaven (Video)
Cinematic: You have reached Solhaven, and the wood elves
have agreed to help you locate the remaining Tear. The fleet
sets out for the Dark Elf continent...
17.4.5 Straits of Darkness
Briefing: Locate the mystic tower of the dark elves in the
strait and destroy it. No building required.
Map Layout: this is going to sound stupid, but just follow
the map edge. Follow the eastern edge, then the northern
edge, and you'll find the dark elf base.
Overall strategy: Get your ship there with minimum combat.
Destroy all the defenders, and level the mystic tower. How
hard can it be?
This mission is extremely simple. You don't even need to
fight that much.
Head straight north, and take out a few Elven Galleons. You
should find a mausoleum. Try the quest. Now head east to the
edge, then north to the corner, warships lead the way.
Once at the corner, go southwest, and you should see an
island with a smithy on it. As your hero approaches, a few
transports and several battering rams will appear. Convert
the smithy for extra points. Load them all up and continue.
Send the warship west along the northern edge. Destroy any
ships in your way. Keep sending it west until they see this
black elf tower. Destroy it. You are getting close.
Once you destroyed this tower, start inching slightly west -
southwest. You should see the tip of the island... This is
the dark elven base, with the mystic tower and lots of
sorcerers and dark elf archers all around. Kill them with
your ships, then take down the tower.
Once the tower falls, you win!
17.4.6 Elnaria
Briefing: You are now leading the wood elves. The high elves
apparently are also attacking the dark elves for the tear
Lucifus. If you will take down the watch tower, you can both
get closer to the city of Yrm...
Map Layout: You start on the southeastern corner. There are
two factions of dark elves... One in the northern corner
(purple flag) and one in the west (black flag). There are
also three islands in the middle of the map that has two
mines each. There's a shrine to your north, and one of the
rocks in the ocean to northwest has a goodie chest.
Retinue: you need units that can convert, plus a wisp to
build.
Overall strategy: convert everything on your island, and
build your keep and scout tower with the wisp. Your retinue
can board the ships and convert those islands after the
galleon takes care of the guards. Then it's a matter of
building enough units to overwhelm the enemy.
NOTE: enemies will send phoenix and such to convert the
mines. Put some warships around the mines to guard each one.
Two or three should be sufficient.
NOTE: the black faction will probably send landing forces
via ferries to raid you. Have warships stand by to repel.
NOTE: Upgrade the scout tower so you can see the whole map.
Use this to spot the hostile dragons and phoenixes and
intercept it with your ships.
The northeastern dark elf does not build, so you probably
don't have to worry about them. On the other hand, having
those extra resources (esp. the crystal mines and a cart of
crystals) sure would help. The problem is... How do you get
it?
You need a fleet of at least six warships, preferably 8.
Then start from the edge, and roll up the galleons one at a
time. Then park the warships on the coast and wipe out all
enemy units that are close to the edge. Then sending in the
landing force... Treants, and cavalry. Send treants in first
to soak up the attack, and send in cavalry to take out the
archers and sorcerers and such.
Now you can claim all that resource for yourself, and an
extra shipyard!
To take on the western threat, you have two choices
basically... Attack from north, or south. I prefer a pincer,
as you now have TWO shipyards and should be able to make two
fleets. Build up your ground forces as well and load them
onto ferries.
When ready, send one fleet to northwestern corner, and the
other to southwestern corner. Then both approach the island
and start going after towers. Send them some air support as
well in form of griffons, and when you can afford it, a
dragon or two. The two fleets should be enough to wipe out
ALL the towers, or at least get close doing so. Then send in
the ground forces, up those corridors you blasted open with
the ships. Spread out and destroy or convert ALL enemy
structures on the island.
Finally, wipe out that watchtower on top of that hill.
Preferably use treants as they can soak up the damage,
though dragons and such are also good.
Once the watchtower falls, you win!
17.4.7 Siege of Yrm (grand finale!)
Briefing: You landed on the Island of Yrm, stronghold of the
dark elves, and nasty place all around. You landed on the
southwestern corner, and the high elves have landed on the
other side. Destroy the dark elves for the Tear Lucifus. If
the high elves turn on you, destroy them as well. Obviously,
your hero and Elana must survive (yes, the game text is
WRONG)
Map Layout: the island is pretty big, sort of inverted-U
shaped. The citadel is in the middle. Mines are on the
outside mostly, and the dark elves are in the center.
Retinue: try to bring more than one unit that can convert.
Dryad, white mage, red mage, black mage, etc. are good.
Bring at east one wisp.
Overall strategy: This is a gamble. You need the dark elf
hero to raid the high elf camp before he comes after you, so
you have some time to build. If he comes after you first,
you're toast. The dark elf hero WILL raid you, but dark
elves are weak, unless the hero calls down a heft spell.
Once you've taken out the hero, the rest you can handle
easily. Use phoenix to "raid" enemy mines, and there are
LOTS of them. Dark elves don't ahve that many units that
convert, while your cheap phoenix can do it. Send Phoenix
all over the place and convert as many mines as you can as
sort of "guerilla warfare". If the enemy converts them back,
you go back and take it AGAIN. This way, the enemy hero is
busy converting those mines instead of coming after you.
NOTE: Some other strategy guides suggest you take the hero
north then west and try to convert the high elf camp while
the wisp build your own camp. This will work initially.
However, it also leaves your camp virtually undefended, and
the first raid by the dark elf hero will wreck the place and
kill off essential characters.
Start by moving north slightly, instead of starting right
where you are, then east slightly. Build against the map's
edge. Have the wisp build mystic tower, while your hero and
general go out and convert all the mines nearby, both
southwest and north. Once the tower is up, build two life
trees against the map's edge, then start building up the
rest like scout towers. Don't make too many guards, as the
enemy hero will probably stay away from you provided you
don't give him targets except those mines, and he'll just
convert them from maximum distance.
Have your hero explore the goodie boxes to the southwest.
He'll also find the bodies of Paridian, Minos, and the rest
of the expedition...
Initially, you're going to be short on rock, so the quarry
to the north, on the beach, is top priority. Other stuff
like gold and ore are easier to come by. Later you'll need
crystal REALLY bad. So quickly build, build, and try to
build an inn, and research the "trade" skill, so you can
convert resources from one type to another. You REALLY need
it.
Try to arrange an ambush for the enemy hero. Have your hero
use defensive spells like a golem to help defend the place.
If you can take out the enemy hero, his raids will fall to a
trickle of just some riders and archers. However, if he were
able to get a nasty spell off, you are doomed.
Build an Eyrie when you can. The phoenix is very important
in the guerilla resource war. It also keeps the enemy hero
busy converting instead of attacking. Send out multiple
phoenixes, along the northern map's edge, and find more
mines to convert. Do the same to south, though one will
probably die from finding the dark elf fleet. Go around the
fleet, then locate MORE mines to convert. Put one phoenix
near each cluster of mine so you can convert things back as
soon as the enemy hero leaves.
Upgrade, upgrade, and upgrade your forces by researching
those skills. Keep the resources roughly balanced unless you
know you need a certain type more than others. You need
flaming arrows and bowmaster in order to do get good kills.
Use the inn to convert the resources as needed. You don't
need that much ground force once you got those researched.
You also need lots of archers to defend against dragon
attacks.
Once the enemy hero's out of the way, send in phoenix to see
if the high elves' camp is still there. More than likely,
it's been wiped out by the dark elves. Convert those mines
and the shipyard on the west side of the map. If the camp is
still there, convert their mines any way.
Keep the wisps busy by building more mystic towers. You need
them to make your forces bigger.
Start upgrading those Eyries and make sure you have three or
more. You need a "fleet" of griffons, say 12 of them. They
will bust towers for you. You probably don't even NEED
dragons, so don't worry about them unless the enemy makes
dragons too.
Build up a ground force of elven archers, cavalry, and
treants as well.
When you get your fleet of griffons, it's time to attack
those towers. Attack them in sequence, from the northeast
corner, work your way around. Leave those "double-towers"
for last. Bring the griffons back to be healed if you can.
Don't forget to build those heal towers and researches.
Bring the griffons back to the heal tower and cast the
"heal" spell.
You should have at least two shipyards by now. If there are
no defenses near the third shipyard, send in a phoenix and
convert that also. Build up a navy of say, 8-10 warships.
Then use them to wipe out the dark elf fleet, probably on
the southwestern banks.
If you spot extra mystic towers around the place, convert
them with your phoenix. Then the enemy must destroy them
instead of raiding you. In fact, have your wisps build extra
mystic towers ALL OVER the place to confuse the raiding
parties may be a valid tactic.
Bust those towers on the plateaus with your flying units,
then send in phoenix to convert those resources. Gather your
ground units and be ready for the final push.
When ready, gather the remnants of your navy and sail
STRAIGHT UP the middle of the U-shaped beach, as close to
the mouth as possible, and let them shoot at anything. Then
send in your ground force and air force and start knocking
off those towers. Under triple attack, those towers won't
last long. Then just set your units to "rampant" and let
them wipe out everything that's still standing.
When all the dark elves have been wiped out, you win!
17.4.8 The Two Tears (Video)
You finally got Lucifus, and just as you try to figure out
how to do it, Elana takes Lucifus, produces Navarre from her
pouch... You tried to argue with her, but she said she's NOT
a "man", and this will be the only way to solve the riddle.
She smashes the two Tears together... There's a flash of
light... And the world did NOT end. However, Elana did... As
she falls to the ground, dead without the power of
Navarre... The world is saved, but at what price?
You're won the campaign! Now try the path of darkness as
well...
17.5 CHAPTER THREE: THE CONQUERER (PATH OF DARKNESS)
You turn your back on Paridian and Minos, and they are NOT
happy. First you need to get away from them, then you need
to raid Yrm, the home of the dark elves, and obtain Lucifus
for yourself...
17.5.1 Treachery
Briefing: Destroy General Paridian's forces, you and Robert
must survive
No building, 10 pts. retinue
Retinue: with 10 pts, not too much choice. Pick someone with
lots of HP, like a knight, and a white mage if you got one.
If not, a group of pikemen for melee is good.
Map Layout: This is the same map as "Thieves" [16.4.1].
Basically, you start next to Esgaard, and you declare that
you will gain the Two Tears, and take out Paridian the
heartless as well. Robert declared that he'll join you, but
Minos ran away to warn Paridian.
You have 3 groups of 9 squires each that will follow you.
However, in your way are a lot of Paridian's troops, who
will attack you. Those tents will pop either pikemen or
squires when you get close. Put your squires around the
tent, and approach with your hero and/or melee units. When
they pop, they'll be full of arrows.
Slowly go north-northeast, and head for middle of the map.
When you see a BUNCH of enemies standing around, both
squires and pikemen, you've found the enemy camp. Use your
melee units to tease the enemy to your squires and kill
them. Repeat until you've killed the enemy hero as well, and
then the surrounding area.
When you cleaned out the surrounding area, you win!
NOTE: Try NOT to win before you've had a chance to explore
the goodie boxes on the ground.
17.5.2 The Orc Ambush
Briefing: Help the Orcs defeat the two clans of Dwarves at
the Caravan. Your hero and Robert must survive.
Map Layout: This map is identical to [16.3.1] Dwarf Caravan,
except there are TWO Dwarf heroes running around. You start
in the southwestern corner, with 3 mines near you. There's a
cache of gold and such to your east along with mines.
You start on the southwest corner. The Orc should be doing
pretty well and should occupy most of the dwarves attention.
Just keep building and don't expand north. Expand east
instead, and avoid getting close to the dwarves. Let the
Orcs occupy them, and slowly build up your army of squires
and pikemen. Use your other conversion unit to convert the
nearby mines while your hero runs east and grab those extra
gold, which will fuel your early expansion.
You can "sneak" a few mines away from the Dwarves by using
the large conversion radius of your hero.
Build up your base ASAP, and be ready to defend yourself
once you attack. Consider build at least two of every
structure, one to build units and the other do upgrade
research.
You probably won't have enough time or resources to do the
exotic stuff like flaming arrows or paladin and cathedral
and such. Instead, just build a lot of mercenaries and
regular pikemen and squires and such with them.
Then send in your forces DURING an Orc attack and wipe out
all the dwarves.
When you clean out the place, you win!
17.5.3 The Minotaur Tribes
You are now leading the Orcs...
Briefing: Gront the giant (orc general) is willing to show
you the way to the Seer, but in your way are many minotaurs.
Get past them. Gront, your hero, and Robert must survive.
Map Layout: You start in the southwest corner. This map is
the same as [16.3.3], and the minotaurs mainly setup in the
same place: one to the north and the other to the west. Some
towers are near you. There's a ravine/depression to your
north with several carts of resources, a mine, and 2 goodie
boxes. Just north of that is the "red shard".
Retinue: get at least one kobold to start building, maybe
two.
Overall Strategy: As you're the orcs, build REALLY fast, and
start RUSHING the towers near you with your units. Then
explore the map, locate more resources, build up a HORDE of
wolfriders and chase everybody down. However, there are more
than one way to do this. You COULD just wipe out ONE tribe
of minos, the one to the north, and then go west to the
seer, without wiping out the entire map.
Start building a ziggurat quickly. Your hero should convert
all the resources nearby, two of them on the ridge, but
convertible from the bottom. Stay away from the towers.
Build some units and defend the two "off ramps".
Upgrade to level 3 keep, and send out bats to locate more
resources. They are sacrificial scouts. Build lots of caves
(4-6) and build LOTS of basilisks and wolfriders (depending
on what type of resources you have more).
Defend against minotaur heroes who may raid you. Protect
those two "offramps" and you should be fine.
When you have enough units, send them out and take out the
towers nearby. You can establish another camp on top, but
that's optional. Keep making more wolfriders and goblins.
You want LOTS of poison and disease carriers. Send groups of
them (5 of each?) into the enemy camps and just let them hit
anybody they want, while keep a group of them at home to go
after enemy heroes that come by to visit. If you spot the
enemy hero, send your raiders after him.
In the meanwhile, keep making more basilisks, wolfrdiers,
and start making trolls and ogres. Keep basilisks at home as
you need them as anti-air units for now. Enemy may send bats
or griffons to harass you, take them out with basilisks.
When you've taken out the enemy hero, it's time to convert
their camp. Send your hero (with some good escorts) into the
enemy camp (the one that lost its hero), and convert their
buildings, as many as you can. Remember, you can set
waypoints for conversion as well.
Repeat for the other camp, and go by that "red shard" for a
dialog about it. Visit shrines when you can as some quests
are good.
Finally, after you've cleaned out the map, send your hero to
the seer's cave up on the northwestern corner, and you win!
17.5.4 The Seer (Video)
Cinematic (Same as [16.3.4]) You visit the seer, and learned
some truth about the Two Tears...
17.5.5 King's Bridge
Briefing: Capture the shipyard at King's Bridge, then build
4 Ferries. Your hero, Robert, and Gront must survive.
Map Layout: You start in the southwestern corner. King's
Bridge is to the east, and there is only ONE bridge across
the river. There are towers just to your north on the road,
then many towers in the town itself around the bridge.
Resources to your east, then north. More resources in the
town itself. One shrine to north, mausoleum to east.
Be warned, this human hero, Kingsley is nasty, as he's
already got a cathedral operational, AND he can summon
daemons, and he can cast Armageddon (level 4 spell). Yep,
he's a pyromancer. With ONE spell, he can take out most of
your army. :-P
Overall strategy: You need to work on resource denial
QUICKLY. The enemy outproduce you with his mines and he
already has knights. If he rushes you, your game is OVER.
Immediately convert all the mines near you, to north and
east.
Convert, then "hide. Build ONLY along the bottom edge of the
map, stay AWAY from the towers to north. Build as FAR south
as possible. You can extend all the way to the river.
Keep Gront at the base as defense and convert nearby
resources. Send hero east to convert resources. Send your
white mage (you brought one, right?) north, dodge the
towers, and convert more mines to north.
Build arenas and such and get a defense working. Put up two
towers to north to defend against raids. You may want to
destroy those 2 towers to your north, but that seems to
trigger enemy raids for me.
Quickly upgrade to keep level 3 and start building lots of
caves and orc huts to raise your army limits. You need a lot
of wolfriders to raid his buildings on your side of the
river. Build bats to explore the map and figure out where
his towers are. Then build a FLOCK of bats (12 at a time)
and send them on "raids" on his gold and ore mines. Without
them he can't build units, and he has to spend time
converting them back, which means he can't raid you. He'll
likely summon daemons and eagles, but you can build LOTS of
bats.
When your wolfriders are ready (have like a dozen or them),
send them to raid structures on this side of the river, go
after towers and so on, on this side. The bats go after
mines. You can build bats faster than he can destroy them,
esp. if you can build 3 or more eyries. Destroy his towers,
then his cathedral, so he can't build knights any more. Then
it's just a matter of kill those that he has.
When you're short on ore, switch to goblin and basilisk
production. When you got ore, switch back to orc and
wolfrider production. You should be able to assemble a good-
size army. Divide them into TWO groups in case the enemy
hero comes casting that "nuke" spell. If he "nukes" one
group, at least you have another group to chase him with.
Once the enemy has been chased behind that bridge, send in
more bats and maybe harpies (when you upgrade the Eyries)
and take out ALL his mines. Now he can't produce anything.
Level ALL his buildings by sending in ALL your ground units
(except you, Robert, and Gront). They probably have a few
cruisers and destroyers ready, you'll need to send in some
trolls, giants, and dragons to get rid of them.
Once that's done, send in your hero and convert the
shipyard, then make 4 ferries, and you win!
17.5.6 Dark Straits
No building in this mission. WARNING: Spoiler ahead. Do NOT
read if you don't need the help!
Briefing: You've arrived in the Dark Straits, where you see
the dark elven fleet is fighting the high elven fleet. You
must land on the island of Yrm, and destroy the mystic
tower, avoid the enemy fleets if possible. Robert, Gront,
and your hero must survive.
Map Layout: You start on the southeastern corner. There's a
big island to your north-northwest, which has another
shipyard. On northeast side of the island is the high elven
fleet, and on the southewest side is the dark elven fleet.
Your target is further west of the island, in the
northwestern corner.
Overall strategy: load up and make your way to that big
island. Unload everybody, send a ferry back for the units
that didn't fit. Set all to defensive or even guardian, then
send someone in to tease the enemy hero to you and KILL HIM,
preferably with your hero with others providing support.
Take over the place, esp. shipyard. Build a couple warships
as escorts. Then it's just a matter of taken the warship
west, take out some ships in your way, and make an extra
ferry (if needed). Use the warships to clean up the island,
then land enough forces to take down dark elf hero and the
tower.
At start, just load everybody onboard at the northwestern
tip of your little island, but before you do that, let the
trolls loose and let them grab all the sheep they can. Yes,
I said sheep. They cause more damage when thrown. Move them
around and have them grab all the sheep on the island, THEN
load them onboard. You may need to leave some goblins
behind.
From the northwestern tip of the island, move all 4 ferries
northward, and continue north, until you're about 3/4 way up
the map, and you should run into an island, with some
kobolds running around. Unload there, and set "defensive".
Move in, and convert those orc huts. There's an orc hero to
northwest of the island. Lure him to your group along with
the few orcs and destroy him.
Have your hero run around and gather all the gold and ore
and the rest. Convert the shipyard, and build 7 warships.
You should have that much gold to do it, and just enough to
build a ferry when you're done.
When you got at least 3 warships, start cleaning the way to
the west of the island. You should find a cruiser or two in
your way, along with maybe a destroyer, and a tower. If your
ships are damaged (fall into yellow zone), bring it back and
let it be healed by the white mage. Somehow, his "group
heal" also works on ships. Then take the fleet out and
finish the job.
Start from the northwestern tip of the island with the carts
and all the orc huts, head west. You should see a tower,
wipe it out. Repair the ships. Then head west again, until
you run into an island just south of you. STAY on the
northern side, as there are some dark elf ships to southwest
and you don't need to fight them. Load the ferries, and
bring them over. Unload the white mage on the northwestern
tip of the island, and get the one with your hero a little
closer to the northwestern corner of the map, so his command
radius helps your ships when fighting the towers.
Then systematically purge all the towers and sorcerers you
can see. There should be 3-4 towers. Wipe them out, repair
after each one. Do NOT lose a ship. When a ship falls into
yellow zone, disengage it to the island. Heal and repeat.
When the coast is clear, unload in the middle of the
coastline, and move the ferries out. Then move the warships
in. You need their artillery support. Put the white mage in
the back, along with Robert and the trolls. Put the bashers
up front. All units should be set to "guardian", which means
they won't run out of formation.
Send in your hero on a hit-and-run. Kill a sorcerer or two,
then run to your group. The dark elf hero should chase you,
and fall right into your ambush and die. Repeat and kill ALL
the sorcerers by the tease method. Heal your hero.
Then send everybody to attack the mystic tower on top of the
hill, and when it falls, you win!
17.5.7 Raid on Yrm
Briefing: The High Elves are battling the Dark Elves for
Lucifus, the red Tear. Defeat them all and get Lucifus for
yourself. Robert, Gront, and your hero must survive.
Map Layout: the island is an inverted U-shaped with plateau
that is U-shaped as well, and lots of towers on top. You
start in the southeastern corner. The high elves are in
northwestern corner. There are three shipyards, one just
south of you, one inside the U, and one on the southwest
side of map.
Start by moving north, then east slightly, so you're on the
eastern side of the map, and build your keep there. Send
your heroes to southwest and convert those mines and
shipyard, and send mage west to convert those two as well.
Then convert the ones to north. Build 2 arenas and a scout
tower. Crank out some orcs and goblins as guards.
If the enemy hero comes calling (probably the dark elf hero
with a few dark archers and such), destroy them, even if you
need to use your hero and Gront and Robert. Send in ALL your
guards. Even if most of your guards die in the attempt,
it'll be worth it if you can take down the enemy hero.
Once you done that, you can grow in relative peace. Build
lots of orc huts to the north, next to that small quarry on
the beach, and start building wolfriders with at least 4
caves. Upgrade your keep at every opportunity. Send more
kobolds to work the mines. Build a second keep if you need
to. Build at least three dungeons, as you need the trolls to
take down those towers.
Feel free to explore the map with a few sacrificial bats to
determine the status of the high elves periodically.
Assemble a force of 8-10 trolls, and use them to bust
towers. They are big enough so they don't die in the
attempt. Bring the wounded back to be healed by your white
mage. Repeat until you get rid of all the towers on the
ridge, going counter-clockwise from your position. You can
also use bats, but they can't be healed (they die too
easily).
Defend your camp against raiders with your horde of
wolfriders and basilisks. If the enemy builds air power,
build your fleet of bats and use those as defense until you
build up a set of basilisks and shamans with totem poles.
Send in wolfriders to raid the dark elves. Ignore the
shipyard, as there shouldn't be anything interesting there.
If there are, send in some trolls to destroy them. Take out
their production structures and mystic towers, and any wisps
you see. The dark elves should be concentrating on the high
elves, and will probably kill the high elf hero for you.
By now, you should have control over most of the map, and
the high elves should be dead from raiding dark elves. If
not, feel free to help them along by sending a raiding force
of wolfriders into their camp and kill only warriors. Leave
the buildings, and send your hero in (with escorts) to
convert them for your use.
Bottle the dark elves in their "fortress". Repeat the move
with trolls and take down all of their towers. Then clean up
the whole map.
There may be some high elves remaining in their ship in that
shipyard to southwest. Build your fleet of warships (say, 4-
8 of them), along with trolls. Send in some other units as
damage soakers first, then have the trolls and the warships
arrive. Once you destroy the ships, that should be
everybody, and you win! If not, run around the map and kill
everything while your hero run around and convert more
resources.
17.5.8 Escape from Yrm (Video)
Cinematic: You now have Lucifus, the red Tear. Your quest
will continue back on the mainland...
17.6 CHAPTER FOUR: REVENGE (PATH OF DARKNESS)
With Lucifus in hand, you will raise an army that will
conquer Esgaard and all of Guardia... And claim the white
tear. And this time, Paridian and Minos will bow to your
righteousness...
17.6.1 Orcport
Briefing: You've reached Orcport, where 3 tribes of Orcs are
fighting. If you can defeat all of them, they will rally to
your cause. However, defeating THREE tribes will not be
easy, as they're established and you're not. Gront, Robert,
and your hero must survive.
Map Layout: You start on a small island with 4 small mines
to the west. The enemies are to the east, on a land mass
about half of the map. There are many mines throughout the
land. There is a shipyard to north and south.
Overall Strategy: You need to find a place to grow your camp
without being bothered, as well as some resources nearby.
Preferably, you need to take over someone's mines and
buildings, then you can use those as "damage cushion"
against enemy raids.
Retinue: Start with at least two kobolds, then a hard-hitter
like giant or knight.
Move all your units southwest to the corner, and have your
hero convert all four mines while your kobold build a
ziggurat there. Load the rest onto 2 ferries and head SOUTH,
all the way to the edge, then east until you see shore.
Unload there, build ANOTHER ziggurat, and have your hero run
around convert all the mines along the bottom of the map...
And quickly build 2 arenas, as you need some orcs to defend
this place. Don't go too far east, as you may run into the
yellow orc's setup.
Send the warship directly east, then south until he sees a
"pier", with orc huts all around and maybe an arena. Start
shooting, stay slightly off land so melee units can't touch
you. If a giant or troll approaches, shoot a few times then
get out of there. You've bothered the red faction long
enough. If you can, bring the ship back to your white mage
to be healed. Then send the ship back to harass.
Set your existing units to defend your new base. Have your
hero run east, and you can probably find the yellow
faction's keep. Convert it and all the buildings nearby.
Have it build some orcs as well. Enemy heroes will raid it,
but that's mainly as "bait". Send your orcs to wound him,
and other enemy orcs/heroes will probably take care of him.
Keep your hero, gront, and your hard-hitter (maybe a
knight?) together. Together they can defeat any hero's
raiding force.
By now you should have destroyed the yellow faction (that
keep you converted earlier). Someone else will probably kill
the hero for you.
Build up your forces, and keep the other orcs busy with
raiding parties. Build at least 4-6 caves and dungeons.
Build large parties of wolfriders, basilisks, and trolls.
Send them in to raid enemy towns, but with primary target
being enemy heroes, and second being enemy eyries.
Don't forget to build some eyries and bats as air defense.
They will have to do until you can build shamans and totem
poles. Don't forget to put a few totem poles on the island
when you can.
Send out bats yourself as raiders. Fly them out to sea then
into land rather than going straight over land to avoid
enemy air units. Attack the weakest targets like scout tower
and so on.
When you're ready for the big push, send your wolfriders
with your hero into enemy town and start converting their
buildings and mines. If you have the "acquire" spell, using
it will help. You should be able to clean up the red faction
then the black faction further up the map.
If the mission doesn't end, the black faction probably has
lots of ships near the shipyard. Build a combination of
basilisks, trolls, and warships, and remove them. When the
last one dies, you win!
17.6.2 Temple of Ymorgia
Briefing: You need to get into the temple. However, the orcs
are outside, and the undead are guarding the temple gates...
Defeat them all, and gain entrance to the temple. Gront,
Robert, and your hero must survive.
Map Layout: The map has a "circle" in the middle, with
opening to the west. The "opening" is guarded by a LEGION of
undead, with wights, skeletons, liches, and more. What's
more, there is an Orc army with hero building to northwest
(opposite you), and a roaming orc hero (who does not build).
Overall strategy: It's not possible "sneak past" the undead,
so you have to have a heavy-hitting team ready to clear the
way.
Quickly start building TWO ziggurats. One will supply more
kobolds to the mines while the other gets upgraded. Have
your hero explore east for more mines to convert. Build
along the southern edge. Use Gront, Robert, etc. as defense
while you go out and convert. When the kobold's done, build
one or two scout towers, and one or two arenas, and crank
out orcs for guarding the place.
Upgrade to level 2 ASAP, then level 3. Pump as many kobolds
as you need into the mines. Build caves and eyries ASAP and
build basilisks and bats as air defense, and use other caves
(have at least 4, preferably 6) to build wolfriders. They
will be your primary offense.
When you are within 10 of your army limit, send a kobold out
to build orc huts. Build 10 of them at a time. You can queue
building events, so use that feature. Don't build the huts
so close the kobold can't get out!
Start working on trolls and ogres when you get to it. You
probably don't need giants, but wouldn't hurt to keep
researching. Start making more and more units, and by this
time, no raids will reach you. Send groups of enemies and
just CLEAN OUT the map, avoid the entrance to the middle of
map for now. Clean out all the orcs on the map, and convert
their mines. NOW you're ready for the big push.
Gather your army and send it at the entrance. By now your
army should be so overwhelming, the undead doesn't stand a
chance. Wipe them all out, and walk in with your hero. You
find this wight general, who pledges allegiance to you. Walk
to the ruins, and you win!
17.6.3 Siege of Archanon
Briefing: You've reached the city of Archanon, where the
dark elves are holding Navarre, the blue Tear. Claim it for
yourself. Setroth, your hero, and Gront must survive.
Yep, no Robert. Right in the beginning, Robert, the voice of
"reason", was silenced by Gront. Setroth the wight will take
his place...
Map Layout: this is the same map as [17.3.7], Archanon. You
start in the southwestern corner. There are dark elf camps
to northwest, northwest, and a band of dark elf guardians in
the middle guarding Navarre, including a dragon. There are
two pyramids, one to east, the other to west.
Start in your corner ASAP and start building and converting
quickly. Raids by the dark elves will come soon, in forms of
dark riders and more, and sometimes, bats and such.
Quickly build and send kobolds into the mines. Build two
keeps if you need to. Let Gront and your mage convert while
you head east and convert more mines. You should find
another set of mines in the southeastern corner.
Build two arenas and pump out some guards. You need them to
defend against initial assault. Also put down one or more
scout towers and make some goblins to scout the area.
Build, then extend east along the bottom of the map. Have
your hero build a keep there and populate THOSE mines with
kobolds. Don't worry about protecting those, at least not as
bad as your main camp. Bring your hero back when done.
Build a series of orc huts along the bottom edge of the map,
use the building queue function. Build like 10-20 of them.
In the meanwhile, start building caves and dungeons. Upgrade
your primary keep to level 3 then 4 so you can start making
ogres and trolls and wolfriders and basilisks.
Keep some basilisks in your camp as you need the defenses
against raiding bats and harpies, if any. Make some of your
own, but enemy towers are numerous.
When you have gathered a good force, send them in and wreck
the towers, following the map's east and west edges. Then
charge into enemy town and just kill anything you can. if
you see enemy hero, go after him/her. Use a mixed force.
Under the pincer movement, they should not last long, and
you can build units faster than they can.
Repeat the attack until the enemies along the top of the map
are no more. Clean out all the towers as well. Feel free to
claim any mines along the top, but that is probably not even
necessary.
Assemble the forces (including lots of ogres and trolls) and
send them in to attack the middle group. They have a lot of
units, but your units are tougher and more numerous, and you
can defeat them.
If the game doesn't end, you probably missed a wisp
somewhere and that wisp is rebuilding in area you can't see.
Send units on "rampant" and locate it, then send in your
units to level the place.
When you've wiped the map clean of enemy presence, you win!
17.6.4 Fall of Archanon (Video)
Cinematic: Finally, you hold both tears in your hand, and
ultimate power is in your grasp! Setroth will show you where
you can resurrect a great Undead army with Navarre, and with
Lucifus' power, nothing can stand in your way...
17.6.5 Battle of Dusk
Briefing: no building.. You need to get Setroth into the
tomb, which is covered with Undead... You start with some
orcish armies, but not much more.
Map Layout: your side and their side is divided by a pretty
river with only two crossings.
Overall strategy: Instead of mass assault, use lure-to-
ambush. Lure a few units to you, smash them. Set units to
guardian mode to have them stay put and shoot... You need to
lure them to their destruction. You'll lose the bait units
quite often, but be satisfied with destroying so many
undead... Or you can use your hero as bait. By now he should
be faster than any unit you have, and more hit points.
You start on west side of the river. Have your trolls spread
out and nab all the sheep you can find. There are a LOT of
them. Set all units to GUARDIAN mode. Most your units close
to the crossing, either the northern one or southern one
would do. Put the ogres in front, in a row. The trolls just
behind them, all facing the crossing. Put your hero with
white mage and Gront just behind them, along with the goblin
shaman. Behind them, put the orcs and the wolfriders.
Send in a wolfrider and tease a few units from the bridge to
you, and watch them go down from the barrage of rocks. To
take care of the liches, send in Gront. His rocks are range
8, unlike the liche's range 6 fireballs. He can get in range
of one liche, and kill him with 2-3 rocks. Repeat for the
other ones. Heal everybody.
Feel free to send in some goblins to explore the land, but
it's really not necessary. There are TWO bands of undead...
The black faction blocking the crossings, and the red
faction next to the temple. The black faction have more
units, but they're relatively lousy, mainly wights and
wraiths, with a few imps. Lure them one at a time to their
destruction. Move across the river in slow but sure steps.
Use the superior eyesight of the goblins as your scout,
figure out where the enemy is not, line up, then lure them
in.
When you've cleaned up the map, and have Setroth next to the
temple, you win!
17.6.6 Attack on Guardia
NOTE: This is probably the toughest mission in the campaign.
Briefing: You are now leading the Undead. Destroy the
dwarves and the humans. Gront, Setroth, and your hero must
survive.
Map layout: you start on the west side of the map. Dwarves
are to the north, and they're already set up! The humans are
to the south, and they will be attacking very quickly. There
are also towers all over the place.
Retinue: pick at least one zombie, as you need to build
quickly. Bring a white mage, and another hard hitter.
Trolls, Dryads, and such are good. Archons are great.
Overall strategy: Your main problem is getting towers up
fast enough to help you defend the darn place. You can't
build just one... You need a set of 3 or 4. If you can kill
the heroes that come visiting, you have the game mostly won.
The main problem is... You can't get 4 towers up fast enough
before the heroes come to visit... And if you send in your
other units, you'll lose one of the critical units like
Setroth or Gront.
The alternative is to move your party north, then east, past
the shrine, and attack the dwarf camp immediately. Leave
your zombie and Setroth behind. The dwarf king has only a
few crossbow and fighters up. With hard hitters you should
be able to take care of the dwarves, kill the dwarf king,
and claim his keep and mines.
Send your hero to convert the mines to east and west Have
the zombies build 2 tombs against the northern edge. One
keep builds zombies for the mines (gold mine first, then the
ore mine), the other pump out skeletons. Convert them to
wights ASAP, as those survive much longer, and you should
have plenty of metal.
As soon as the zombie's freed up, start building towers,
usually to east of the keep, near the other group of mines.
Put the wights inside. Build at least 2 towers, maybe
another one just south of the hill. Put Gront behind the
towers, and dryad inside one of them, your hero in another.
Keep Setroth way in the back. He's too weak to fight and he
dies immediately if the tower's destroyed (he can't run from
those that wrecked the tower).
With the towers, you should be able to fend off the
occasional raids by the humans. Convert the most wounded
units into more powerful form. Put more zombies into the
other mines to east and west, build another tomb if you need
to. Put down LOTS of tombstones along the top edge of the
map in tight rows. You should have plenty of rocks and
crystals to do it.
Upgrade the keep when you can. Put a tower in front if you
like, but most attacks should come from southeast as there's
where the humans are. Keep making skeletons and upgrade them
to wights and shadows. Build dungeon and barrow and such
when you can to research the improvements.
Build a couple eyries and make some bats to explore the map.
Upgrade those when you can to make harpies. You'll find the
human towers all over the place, and the town to the south,
with lots of mines and such. One thing the humans are short
on is anti-air (usually), so send a LOT of bats to raid his
mines, and move the LONG way around (west, then south, then
east).
The bats should reveal the towers. Send a large group of
wights (10 or so) against the towers, upgrade the most
wounded to slayer knights. Don't forget to research those
upgrades that double and triple damage. Keep making
skeletons and upgrade them to wights and/or wraiths. Keep a
group at home in case the humans raid you (keep some bats
between you and them to act as "early warning" system).
Continue sending the group of wights and wraiths and slayer
knights out into the enemy town, and you'll wear them down.
Send harpies and such against their mines to stop them from
getting more gold and crystals and such. Keep them on the
defensive. Wreck all his towers, then empty his town.
In the meanwhile, have your hero start converting the mines
to the west and southwest, though keep monitoring him, as he
may run into human raiders, and maybe even the enemy hero if
he's still around. Send some escorts if you like.
Once you clean out the human town, send the groups out to
sweep the map of any remaining humans. They may rebuild to
the west (near your starting point).
When you've wiped out the map of every last dwarf and human
presence, you win!
17.6.7 Siege of Esgaard
Briefing: You are at Esgaard... The humans have found some
allies in wood elves, Barbarians, and Orc hero leading
minotaurs. Kill everybody else.
Map Layout: this map is interesting as you start in the
lower left corner (southwest), the humans, Barbarians, and
wood elves are to the northeast. There's a big "lake" that
covers almost a quarter of the map to southeast, and two
shipyards, one on western shore of lake, and the other at
northern shore. There's a line of towers between you and the
humans, and a long series of mines all over the map.
Retinue: bring at least one zombie, and some fast units
capable of conversion, like a Dryad that can keep up with
your hero. Don't forget a white mage if you got one.
Overall strategy: Build, build, build, then upgrade,
upgrade, upgrade. You need to play guerilla warfare with the
resources. Convert the mines, let enemy hero convert them
back, convert again... Repeat. Build enough wights and
slayer knights and skeletons and shadows/wraiths to empty
the map, starting with the elves.
Started on the keep right away, then built three tombs. One
tomb crank out skeletons, one make zombies, and one go after
"burial", then more skeletons. Once burial is done, I had
the zombie build like 20-40 gravestones in a row. The
zombies goes into gold and ore mines, then crystal and stone
mines.
Strangely, the heroes never really bothered me too much.
Except for one or two initial raids, they pretty much kept
to converting the mines back and forth. I was able to build
up a couple towers after saving enough resources, which are
sufficient to repel the raids, after I put Dryad and such in
the towers. I pumped enough zombies to fill up the gold mine
and ore mine, so I start on the upgrades and the other
buildings.
In the meanwhile, the back-and-forth on the mines continued.
They convert the mines, I convert them back after they're
gone. There was once I ran into the wood elves party and
those gladewardens shot me up pretty hard, so I abandoned
the conversion and headed back to camp and attempt to heal.
Any attacks by the 3 parties are easily dealt with 3 towers
AND Gront, plus other units nearby. Keep skeletons in the
towers. Wights are too valuable as attacking units.
Build up a large group of skeletons, with 3 (and later, 4)
tombs. Convert some skeletons to wights (probably the most
damaged ones), and the rest to wraiths (you should have a
large crystal surplus as well). Start sending them out on
raids, while keeping a group at home as guard. Start
patrolling for enemy towers and taking those out when I see
one. Convert the most damaged wights into slayer knights
and/or liches (when I get all the upgrades built).
Start building eyries, and go after the gold mines and such
with those giant bats. You don't want the humans to make a
lot of knights, so strangle them economically. Remember to
kill them economically is better than killing them
physically.
Research your own stuff to help the slayer knights be more
power. Those double/triple damage upgrades are critical.
There's a shipyard to east, but that's almost irrelevant.
Enemy has some ships at the yard, but it's just a lake and
they aren't going anywhere. However, beware of some enemy
landing attempts. The Barbarians (Orc hero) may lead some
amphibious attacks across the pond, but they're easily beat
off.
When I see enemy heroes leading the raid, I surround him
with wraiths and shadows, and usually the hero is toast esp.
if he lets himself to be surrounded. If the first time
didn't work, attack again.
Start taking over the rest of the mines with your hero (and
a big escort, along with a zombie or two to build tomb/tower
at the new site). Build a set of harpies, then everybody
make dragons. Don't forget to add more gravestones to your
main camp and other buildings. By now you should have PLENTY
of stone and crystal.
Send the bats out as sacrificial explorers. When they locate
enemy structures, send in the harpies and bats to tear down
the place. You will find the wood elves, usually at the
north side (they may expand west) while Barbarians, south of
Esgaard, may go even further south.
Send in groups and groups of wraiths, shadows, wights,
skeletons, and slayer knights. Spread them up slightly and
send them all over the place and destroy all enemy units.
Build more tombs to make more zombies for the new mines
you'll take over, as well as make even MORE skeletons. Add
even MORE gravestones.
Upgrade your eyries, and start making dragons. You need a
couple of those to go after enemy's navies.
By this time, you probably have cleaned out the map except
for that huge lake which covers the southeastern section of
the map. Send in a few flight units and have them look
around that large "lake".
When the dragons are ready, send them into the lake and
destroy all the warships and cruisers and such. Clean out
the rest of the map as well using the dragons. Enemy may
send a few Phoenix and Eagles, but your existing units and
some shadows/wraiths can take care of them.
Once you've destroyed everybody, you win!
17.6.8 Grand Finale (Video)
Cinematic: You are at the game of Esgaard, home of the
guardian knights. You've dealt with Paridian/Minos already.
You remember the prophecy, but you need to destroy the
guardian knights as well... You crash the two tears
together. There was blinding light... Then...
You stood in the middle of devastation. There is nothing
left around you.
18 Miscellaneous
18.1 MOVING/CONVERTING HEROES
NOTE: Some of following info is taken from the WBC "Tomes of
Knowledge".
Q: I have created a hero in single player but I don't see
him in multi-player/skirmish. Why?
Q: I have created a hero in multi-player/skirmish but I
don't see him in single-player. Why?
A: The heroes for single player are separate from the
multiplayer/skirmish heroes and are kept in separate files.
When your single-player hero win the campaign, that hero
will automatically be exported to the multiplayer/skirmish
hero list.
Q: What do I need to copy to use my hero on a different
computer? Can I fit everything on a floppy disk?
A: [Stevefawkner] You'll need to take 2 files:
HERODATA.XCR-for your Skirmish Heroes
CAMPAIGNHEROES.XCR-for any Campaign Heroes
They should fit on a floppy, especially if you zip them
first (but it depends on how many heroes you've created!).
18.2 MULTIPLAYER INSTRUCTIONS
--THE END--
