HOMM3 SOD: Strategy on Hack and Slash 4 "Grave Robber"
Sebastien Patenaude
little bit of luck to complete it, particularly near the end but it's
doable and do not feel bad if you have to load more than usual. I had to
do the same. I finished on month 3, week 1, day 3.
Starting Bonus: Pick 10 wood and 10 ore. Normally, I'd say to pick the
Equestrian Gloves to improve your movement but they would only help you
in the first week or two because you'll find a pair of your own soon
enough.
Week 1
1) Maximizing movement will be everything in this map. I hope for you
Crag Hack has expert Logistics, which he should have if you picked it as
a choice in the first scenario as I strongly encouraged ;-)
2) It's theoretically possible to get the Portal of Glory in week 1
(Mage Guild, Barracks, Monastery then Portal of Glory) but in reality
it's far from practical and even if you could scrounge up the resources,
your economy would be crippled and it's doubtful you could also afford
the Castle structure. Without the Castle structure, you only lose 1
Angel instead of 2 (1 the first week and 1 extra the following week).
3) Here were my build orders
1) Mage Guild Level 1
2) Barracks
3) Monastery (just in case I won the Lottery and could get the Portal of
Glory on the next turn :-)
4) Griffin Tower
5) Citadel
6) Castle
7) Griffin Bastion
4) Buy Archers and Halberdiers. Go back south after making a small
detour going north, northwest to flag your sawmill.
5) You might guess it but do not fight the Ghost Dragons right away ;-)
6) Destroy Undead against Wights works very well.
7) Cast Visions to see what is waiting in the second Castle town you'll
see. It's 115 Skeleton Warriors, 70 Zombies and 25 Vampire Lords. A bit
too strong to take right now...
8) You will see Vampire Lords protecting a gold mine. They look too
scary to take on this week right ? Wrong. Make sure you visit the nearby
well, attack them, cast Mass Slow, followed by 2 Destroy Undead spells.
9) Do not forget the Equestrian Gloves near a pair of chests, southeast
of the gold mine.
Week 2
10) The builds:
1) Marketplace
2) Resource Silo
3) Upgraded Archer Tower
4) Upgraded Guarhouse
5) ---
6) Stables
7) Training Grounds (I had to trade for 4 wood)
11) Go east with Crag Hack and free a prisoner from his jail. Slash is a
level 11 Knight. He will make a nice perfect defender for your holdings
when Crag Hack is away.
12) Give Slash's troops to Crag Hack. He can make better use of them.
13) With the combined army, you can clear the Hill Fort to the south.
Just wait, wait in battle that is.
14) Afterwards, go back to the Castle village you saw earlier. It's on
Cursed Grounds, so no spells... but wait, with the latest set of
patches, players can now cast level 1 spells. It means you can cast that
wonderful Slow spell!
15) Your 85 or so Marksmen will do the job nicely.
16) In your second town, build the Tavern, Town Hall, the marketplace
and then eventually the City Hall.
17) You get 4000 gold in an event at the end of each week.
18) Hire 2 new heroes in your second town.
19) There was something weird happening: I had heroes popping out of the
one-way exit then vanishing right away...
20) Split Marksmen in two against Dwarven Treasuries.
Week 3
21) You want to be able to build the Portal of Glory by the end of the
week which should not a problem.
22) I made a routine of buying all troops at the secondary town,
Gateway, each week and upgrading them at the Hill Fort.
23) I bought some more troops for Crag when he returned home.
24) Upgrade structure by structure in your main town, to save the trip
to the Hill Fort later on. Do not bother upgrading the Training Grounds
until later weeks and make sure you keep yourself enough resources for
the Portal of Glory.
25) Clear Wraiths from one of the Subterranean Gates (I picked the
northeast one) and send a secondary hero (or two) through.
26) Remember that you can cast View Air to locate enemy heroes and
towns.
27) Use Squire trick as much as possible to maximize Crag Hack's
movement rate.
28) Red was continuing with its weird behavior and then it dawned on me.
It had Town Portal and the Archer Towers next to the one-way exit
attracted them like flies. When I first saw the Archer Towers next to
the lith, in week 1, I had decided to visit them once (more to uncover
terrain and no enemy had come through yet), making sure no hero ended
his turn near them, then I decided to leave the Archer Towers alone
(after they were reflagged by red) in case they would become an
incentive for red to come through. This was a wise idea and you should
do the same. Do not reflag the Archer Towers.
29) Finish flagging mines in your territory.
30) Do not forget the Portal of Glory on day 7
Week 4
31) I did not do it myself until much later, but kill the Ghost Dragons
before venturing underground (make sure you have Archangels to go before
the Ghost Dragons and cast Mass Slow). The scroll is one of Town Portal
and it might be able to save Crag Hack later on. Clear the Vampires from
the Hut of Magi also.
32) Buy a Resource Silo at Gateway.
33) Visit the Red keymaster tent in the underground (that's if you
decided to have Crag go through the northeast Subterrean Gate). The
other Subterrenean Gate might be better since there is a Dragon Utopia
at the end of the tunnel. But eventually, you'll have to clear both
tunnels and even though I got to the Dragon Utopia weeks later, it was
still uncleared. Basically what tunnel you pick does not matter much.
34) Bought Cavalry and Angels and upgraded them at the Hill fort. I gave
them to Crag Hack by hero chain.
35) Crag Hack's army: 148 Marksmen, 27 Crusaders, 216 Halberdiers, 15
Zealots, 87 Royal Griffins, 13 Champions and 3 Archangels.
36) When you come out of the underground, cast View Air to locate a red
town and rush it.
37) That would have been a great plan except once again there will be a
gate blocking your way. Every Necropolis here is like this, enemies can
pour out, get back in with Town Portal but you cannot take their towns
ever.
38) I was more or less confident however that Crag Hack's army was
decent enough so he would not be attacked first. Even then, I sent out
expendable scout heroes first whenever I could.
39) The Necropolis towns will eventually build Covers of Darkness which
will complicate your situation. Flagged structures can provide you with
a little visibility until they're flagged again by red but do not have
Crag Hack go too much of his way for any of them. Leave that to
secondary heroes.
Month 2, week 1 (week 5 overall)
40) There's a shipyard near the southeast lake (revealed by the Hut of
Magi). Board a boat, disembark on the island, visit the green tent.
41) In front of the green tent, there is an hidden ambush: 10 Liches, 90
Wights and 120 Skeleton Warriors.
42) There's also an ambush before the Quest Guard protecting the Shield
of the Damned which is the item Crag Hack seeks for Sandro.
43) The ambush consists of: 200 Skeleton Warriors, 150 Wraiths and 20
Power Liches. It's easily winnable with your current army: stay back,
cast Haste on your Marksmen and shoot the Power Liches.
44) We should have known it wouldn't be that easy to finish, the quest
guard requires you to defeat Charnath, which you might have seen while
riding around the lake. It's a static hero in the southest corner
"standing" on evil fog, the dark cloud-like terrain type.
45) At the same time, red was finally making a push for my main town.
46) I bought all troops inside hoping it would not dare to attack.
Month 2, week 2 (week 6 overall and afterwards)
47) You can use the one-way lith (north of the lake) to come back
quickly but if you followed my advice and took the Town Portal scroll
earlier, it would be even quicker.
48) And so Crag Hack returned home. I think his return encouraged the
big red hero to go back home with Town Portal or perhaps it was because
it was a change of week and it wanted to get reinforcements.
49) I was tempted to leave a big stack home as a defense.
50) I decided to rely instead on new weekly creature production and Town
Portal if it looked desperate.
51) If you absolutely want to leave a stack behind, leave the
Halberdiers.
52) Crag Hack followed the other underground path, the one he had not
followed earlier. I made sure to visit the blue tent.
53) Against the Dragon Utopia: split your Archangels in 2, leave your
Halberdiers and Marskmen with a squire. I did not leave my Marksmen
behind and lost 50 of them. I got the Tome of Fire Magic, the Titan's
Gladius, the Sphere of Permanence, the Boots of Speed and 30,000 gold.
Whatever you get inside the Dragon Utopia, and it's likely different
items since I don't think you can set them in the Editor, it is very
likely to be more than worth it.
54) For those curious, here are the probabilities of what kind of
protectors you will face and what relics you will win:
30%: Fight 8 Green Dragons, 5 Red Dragons, 2 Gold Dragons and 1 Black
Dragon for 20,000 gold, 1 treasure artifact, 1 minor artifact, 1 major
artifact and 1 Relic.
30%: Fight 8 Green Dragons, 6 Red Dragons, 3 Gold Dragons and 2 Black
Dragons for 30,000 gold, 1 minor artifact, 1 major artifact and 2
Relics. (this is what I fought and got)
30%: Fight 8 Green Dragons, 6 Red Dragons, 4 Gold Dragons and 3 Black
Dragons for 40,000 gold, 1 major artifact and 3 Relics.
10%: Fight 8 Green Dragons, 7 Red Dragons, 6 Gold Dragons and 5 Black
Dragons for 50,000 gold and 4 Relics.
55) The above information can be found with the map editor or by
consulting my printable HOMM3 Location Reference Guide available for
download at our School of War page at the AW site.
56) In my territory, I did my best to lure red away from the main Castle
with weak heroes. You want to delay his assault as much as possible.
It's a kind of race, Crag Hack has to find and defeat Charnath, and
reach the Shield of the Damned before both your towns are taken and 7
days have passed. If this happens, the troops will abandon Crag Hack.
57) You must open the green border gate in the southeast corner to enter
yet another underground tunnel. In my game, I had to delay, Crag had to
port back home to intimidate a strong red hero away. If your army is
about equal or stronger (unlikely so don't attack first), red is likely
to pull back. If I had been more confident and knew what was coming up
on the underground path after the green gate (I know there's View Earth
but still), I could have let red take my towns and take my chances but
it was safer teleporting back home and making another run for the
Subterrenean gate in the southeast corner.
58) I did try to kill the invading undead army and despite my amazing
tactics *cough*. Mass Slow, protecting my shooters with pocket formation
and shooting the Power Liches), Crag Hack was defeated. Therefore, it is
much better to intimidate it away (staying in town) as suggested
previously.
59) I left the Halberdiers behind this time and made another run for the
Subterranean gate in the southeast corner.
60) Buy War Machines from the factory since it's on your way. They're
not really needed but might be useful for soaking up attacks from stupid
undeads.
61) Crag Hack should enter the Subterranean Gate (do not bother picking
up resources that don't block your way) and traverse the tunnel until he
reaches another Subterrenean Gate.
62) On the other side, you will be blocked by blue and red border
guards. Since you're supposed to have visited both keymaster tents
already, you should be ok.
63) Battle VS Charnath: My 246 Marksmen, 86 Crusaders, 39 Zealots, 206
Royal Griffins, 22 Champions and 9 Archangels against her 30 Ghost
Dragons, 330 Walking Dead, 250 Zombies, 110 Wraiths and 80 Vampire
Lords.
64) Charnath has Expert Tactics so it will cancel out Crag Hack's own
Tactics. Start with Mass Slow. With luck, she won't have Mass Dispell or
Mass Haste. In our battle, she cast Mass Slow too which did not help her
much since Crag Hack's was much superior in shooter power. Have the
Shooters and Archangels attack the Vampire Lords then the Wraiths. On
the second turn, cast Mass Haste and everybody should attack the Ghost
Dragons. If you don't have Tactics, then it might be tougher. Mass Slow
followed by Mass Haste (if you're yourself slowed) or another mass
beneficial spell should give you the edge anyway.
65) I could have went back home with Crag Hack to prevent losing my town
but I did not bother. If past experience was any indication, I might not
win that time either.
66) Hurry back on your way, through the tunnel. Save regularly under
different names.
67) I got intercepted by Septienna a few times who was able to Town
Portal at the town west of the lake and reach me. This was mostly bad
luck though. You should make a conscious effort to have weaker heroes
running around attracting enemy heroes on wild goose chases.
68) Casting View Air to avoid the enemy heroes wasn't of much help
because of Town Portal.
69) If you still have a boat on water, go east from the Subterranean
Gate, go to the lake's shore and cast Summon Boat. You're less likely to
get caught that way.
70) Because I had forgotten to save daily myself, and Crag Hack's
movement points were exhausted at the end of a turn, I could not Town
Portal home to safety the first time I got intercepted even while using
an autosave (not that I had a town left anyway if my memory serves me
right ;-). So I had to load and play back about a week.
71) I got caught a few times once more but reloaded a few days before,
trying each time to reach the shipyard and board a new boat, sometimes
not using up my full movement so I would end turns at different places.
On my last few tries, Septienna even had Fly! No need to tell you, this
was a stressful situation.
72) The most dangerous place is by the Subterranean gate that was
blocked by the green border guard.
73) I thought of dismissing all troops other than Archangels to have
Crag Hack go quicker but it turns out you're even more likely to get
attacked and not just by the biggest red army either.
74) Once you make it to the river, you might be safe if you make sure
any super-strong flying army is not near and you keep yourself between
the 2 shores. When it seems calm, you can take a chance and disembark
near the Quest Guard and reach the Shield of the Damned.
75) It might have been a fluke but I was kind of lucky since Septienna
decided to board a boat instead of flying to kill me which she should
have easily.
The campaign was finished in 256 days for 1425 points and a rating of
Master Genie.
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