HOMM2 PoL campaign, direct path
Maureen Grady
So I thought I'd break with tradition when I started up the PoL
campaign. Normally, I always take the long, scenic route when playing
branched campaigns. But when I started the PoL campaign I decided to
try it on the shortest path- then take the long path sometime in the
future.
A word of caution- if you do this, the last game is very, very
difficult. I have already had to abandon my efforts twice and restart
from day one. I am in the third attempt and am now well into month
six and the end is nowhere in sight.
Has anybody beaten this game having taken the shortest path to get
there?
++++++++++++++++++= SPOILER BELOW +++++++++++++++++++++
I first saw the two Dragon ladies about the third week when I was out
exploring on ship. Both had Swarms of Bone Dragons already. One had
a throng of Ghosts with her. I could hardly wait to meet them.
About 3 months in to the game...
I was rolling along rather smoothly and had conquered all of the
northern isles and solidified and was starting my foray into the
southern swamps when one of those two Dragon ladies dimension doored
up to my strongest castle with my strongest hero with my best troops
and stomped all over them with her 324 Bone Dragons and all her stats
in the teens.
I made a retreat from those two western isles and made sure I got all
the boats out of there (even though she could build them in that one
town) and holed up in my 3 eastern isles trying to rebuild my forces.
It's now month six. That one dragon lady still owns those two isles.
Meanwhile, my best hero (who now knows dim. door.) is running around
the western swamp killing heroes and taking castles.
But I don't have much of a plan anymore. Six months in and it seems
like it will be another six before I can build up big enough stacks
to face 300-400 bone dragons.
Oh well- if anyone has completed this, I guess I'm about ready for a
tip or two.
Jim Lindsey
Hi Maureen,
I also took the direct path on my first pass at that campaign. It took
7 months to complete it. I first conquored all the castles other than
The Necros. Then I built up what I thought was a killer stack until
I met someone with 400+ Bone Dragons---I actualy beat them barely
and then the next character attacked with around 300 bone dragons
and a couple hundred Vampire Lords. I retreated and built a better
stack. I must have gotten lucky since none of the necro's DD'd into
my teritory ( I saw them using dimension door in their own island and
discovered later only one of their castles had it so that may be the
reason for my luck). The only necro that got out did it on the boat
that I took to the teleporter station after I had to retreat. I squashed
that character easily enough after it took only one town.
This sceen was the longest I had ever played in terms of months, even
with it taking seven months I still ranked Black Dragon on the high
score list. Good luck ( I think that is what is needed in this sceen).
Maureen Grady <q...@spamshield.mindspring.com> wrote in article
<5mmd1p$7...@camel1.mindspring.com>...
Mason Reed
On 30 May 1997 12:58:41 GMT, "Jim Lindsey" <alv...@ix.netcom.com>
wrote:
>Hi Maureen,
>I also took the direct path on my first pass at that campaign. It took
>7 months to complete it. I first conquored all the castles other than
>The Necros. Then I built up what I thought was a killer stack until
>I met someone with 400+ Bone Dragons---I actualy beat them barely
>and then the next character attacked with around 300 bone dragons
>and a couple hundred Vampire Lords. I retreated and built a better
>stack. I must have gotten lucky since none of the necro's DD'd into
>my teritory ( I saw them using dimension door in their own island and
>discovered later only one of their castles had it so that may be the
>reason for my luck). The only necro that got out did it on the boat
>that I took to the teleporter station after I had to retreat. I squashed
>that character easily enough after it took only one town.
>
>This sceen was the longest I had ever played in terms of months, even
>with it taking seven months I still ranked Black Dragon on the high
>score list. Good luck ( I think that is what is needed in this sceen).
>
This one is fun :)
When you refer to the "short path", I'm assuming you didn't take the
last diversion off of the main path (to get the full set of armor)?
It doesn't make /much/ differance, but is rather nice :)
Spoilers below
First, a defination: "Blocking a teleporter" == Moving a throw-away
hero through a teleporter, then turning him around and leaving him
sitting on the teleporter. This prevents the computer from moving
through the teleporter, and since your hero is on "your" side of the
teleporter, he cannot be attacked either. I suspect everyone who has
gotten to this point is aware of this, as several of the previous
mission are hard/impossible to solve with out this little feature.
Do a little exploring, wait about a week (and build up your starting
castle, of course) before looking to expand. You should be able to
take the two islands fairly quickly (say, week 1 or 2). Then wait
another couple of weeks, and conquer the small continent/island off to
the west AND BLOCK THE TELEPORTER to the south of the wizards castle.
Otherwise Mr. Superhero will come through sooner or later (probably
sooner) and kick your butt :) Note that you have to be careful when
blocking it, as it sits in some swamp, which slows down your character
and it is /very/ easy to run out of movement on the wrong side of the
teleporter. Not only does this lose you your wimpy hero (not a big
loss), it draws attention to the teleporter -- he almost always goes
through afterwords, and will cause you no end of problems. You also
have to be quick -- if not plugged within a day (two at the outside)
he will come through on his own, with the same result.
My solution was to plug it temporarly with my main hero, while moving
up the permement blocker as close as possible, then carefully
switching places. Once you get that done, the computer cannot attack
you (no boats, and it isn't possible to dimension door from either of
the other two islands/continents to any of yours.
Now you wait. And wait. And wait. And then (probably) wait some more
:)
This is the force I ended up taking over to the other side:
~50 Titans
~80 Cyclops
~100 War Troll
~40 Bone Dragon
~75 Archmages
Note: the armor gives you maximum morale and luck regardless of any
adjustments, so the penalties for mixing troops, etc. are all
nullified. If you don't have it, something like this should work:
~50 Titans
~80 Cyclops
~100 War Troll
~150 Ogre lords
~75 Archmages
In reality, it doesn't really matter what you put in the two land
slots, they don't do much. Just as long as you have the three
shooters in your army -- and your hero has Mirror Image and as many
spell points as possible :)
When you have something in this ballpark (all number are from memory
-- if you have the 50 Titans, the other troop amounts should be
correct), there are two courses:
If you have dimension door, take a boat between the two enemy held
continents. You get some decent stuff (a couple of minor artifacts,
etc.), and there is a landing on the eastern continent were you can
put in and dimension door BACK to the western continent. You aren't
ready for the Necromancers yet. There are three advantages two doing
it this way:
1) You get to visit a Xanadu Palace immediatly, which gives
your stats a quick boost.
2) The nearest castle is a Wizards castle, so you can get
additonal Titans and Archmages quicker.
3) You are sitting right in the Necromancers dimension door
path -- if you can hold a blockade here, you can prevent them from
attacking the castles to the north.
If you don't have Dimension Door, you'll have to go through the
teleporter that you plugged earlier, and won't have the advantages
described above (and you'll be a manuverabilty disadvantage, which
won't help in securing the castles)
In any case, take whatever castles you can get during the first day,
making sure to end your turn in one. Mr. Superhero will show up and
attack you immediatly (he has to have dimension door, since he got to
this continent, and he sees you have a much smaller army than he does.
Superhero has something like:
300+ Bone Dragons
250+ Power Liches
250+ Vampire Lords
and other stuff :) [those are the only important ones, though].
You are out manned and out gunned by several orders of magnatude.
Luckily, the AI has a small flaw -- it will ALWAYS attack a mirror
image instead of attacking a real troop. Actually, this is fairly
reasonable, since one hit destroys a mirror image, no matter how big
the stack is, which reduces the enemy as fast as possible... The
problem is the computer doesn't learn from experiance :)
First turn, your titans get to move first (Very Fast v. Fast for
Vamipre Lords). Cast mirror image on the Titans, then attack the
Vampires [do NOT attack anything else -- I'll explain why in a
moment].
Next come the Archmages, they should also attack the vampires.
Finally, the mirror image of the titans attack, and the should also
attack the vampires (even if only 1 still remains standing!) If any
vampire lords are still alive at this point, they move and you need to
build up your army some more, because:
When Vampire Lords attack a stack, they get 10%(?) of the hp of the
damage they do back in regeneration. When Vampire Lords attack a
Mirror Image stack, they get credit for the FULL HP of the stack
destroyed. Needless to say 50x300 hp (for the titans) results in all
(or almost all) of the vamipre lords regenerating. Now the bone
dragons will kill off 25%+ of your Titans, and you're dead in the
water.
Assuming all of the Vampire Lords are killed, the Bone Dragons will
move next, and attack the mirror image of the Titans, who promply die.
Next, your War Trolls move, and they should attack the Power Liches,
just to get their numbers down a bit.
The Power Liches move next, and kill 15-20 Titans (ballpark, but not
too far off). Note that these are the first casulties you've taken in
this battle.
Skip everyone elses turn, and go on to turn two.
Now, the Bone Dragons are sitting right next to your titan stack. You
/could/ attack them -- but its a really bad idea, as you'll loose
lotsa of titans in the retaliation. You could cast Mirror Image on
them, and have those Titans attack, but they would be destroyed in the
retalitore strike. Instead, skip the Titans turn, and cast Mirror
Image on the Archmages.
The Archmages (both real and mirrored) should attack the Power Liches,
and get them down to sane levels (~40-70). Next the Bone Dragon
moves. What does he do? He runs down and attacks the mirror image of
the archmages! Gee, how clever.
The Power Liches attack, killing off maybe 1-2 Titans.
The War Trolls attack, hitting the Power Liches (if more than 30-40
remain), otherwise the Bone Dragons.
Skip everyone else
Now cast Mirror Image on the Titans again, and have both the mirror
and the real Titans attack the Bone Dragons. Note that the Archmages
can also attack, since the Bone Dragons are not adjacent to the
Archmages. Bone Dragons jump back up to the top, munch on the Mirror
Imaged Titans, repeat until all Bone Dragons are killed (or you run
out of spell points, which is very bad unless only a few [10-20 Bone
Dragons remain] )
This should do as many point to the Dragon's a turn as possible. You
could add Archers or Greater Druids, but not in large numbers, and the
Bone Dragons are likely be next to them approximently half the time,
anyway, so it doesn't help much. Note that the non-shooters may never
attack, and should NEVER attack the Bone Dragons, since the
retaliation will kill them (all!) unless the stack is almost dead
anyway.
This works because the Power Liches are only Average in speed (so they
cannot attack and destroy the Power Liches before the Dragons move),
and both the Archmages and Titans are Very Fast (so they move before
the dragons, and so a mirror image of them attacks before the Fast
Dragons). Note that the War Trolls never get attacked -- they are to
weak to be considered a target by either the Power Liches or the
Dragons, and they sit in the middle, so that the Dragons will never be
adjacent to them.
The good news is that there is only one (?) hero with a stack like
this, once he is dead, the rest is just mopping up (I conquered the
remainder of the western continent that week, using Dimension Door to
kill enemy heroes and take cities, and Town Portal to end the turn in
a nearby city, to get my spell points back, and could have conqured
the Necromancers within another few weeks). If you decide to build up
your armies before tackling the Necromancers, station your best hero
in the southern most Wizard's castle. He should be able to intercept
any Necromancers that cross over to your continent, and kill them
before they can attack any of your cities.
In conclusion, while the armor makes it quicker (Town Portal helps
collect armies quickly, and allows you to regenerate SP easily) and
slightly easier (by nulling out the cost of mixing armies), you should
still win as long as your spell power is 12-15 & you drink from the
Artisan Well before invading you should have 200+ spell points, which
means you can cast mirror image 8 (?) times in combat, which is
sufficent, I think.
As far as winning it with a normal strategy, although you could press
next turn for long enough to get ~300 Titans, which might stand a
chance (the computer should spread its armies around, which means you
will only have to face 400-500 Bone Dragons, instead of the 1000+ you
should face). Looking at the editor, you can see that the computer
player actually has one hero start out with all of those troops, which
is why moving quickly on this level will not help.
Maureen Grady
************* SPOILER *************
There have been a couple of very helpful posts. I suppose the common
denominator in terms of "helpful" is that it really *is* a hard and
long map and one has to work hard at it.
Anyway, here is a quasi-real-time update on my situation. I'm into
month seven week two now and have taken over the big, western swamp.
I have also just recently recovered the two islands from the first
dragon lady (who helpfully spread her 3xx Bone Dragons in three
castles, one town and herself). This "spreading and protecting"
strategy of the CP is very useful for it for a few weeks, but in the
long run (actually, the mid run) it is devastating.
So now I am shuttling troops to the front and saving gold and building
up some nice stacks for the final assault on the south-eastern swamp.
My main hero (Kalindra) is at about level 26 with some awesome stats.
She is running a very strange army; one that I have never even
considered running before. It is made up of five range attackers.
But only two allignments:
Titans, Arch-Magi, Hobbits, War Trolls, and Orcs (apologies to any
die-hard "Lord of the Rings" afficiandos- all I can say is that it is
working and I'm desperate).
So now I'm going to return to the game. I can build up to about 100
Titans in three more weeks. Then I'm going to try my hand at the
eastern swamp.
Marcus Ner
> The only necro that got out did it on the boat
that I took to the teleporter station after I had to retreat. I squashed
that character easily enough after it took only one town. <
I hired a hero to "plug" that teleporter. It's a great strategy for
keeping the AI under control.
Maureen Grady
***************** SPOILER ALERT *******************
Whew, finally. That last game took forever (well, 8 months, 3 weeks
and 6 days seemed like forever). I figure the setback from the
dimension dooring dragon lady's surprise attack cost me about 2
months.
Anyway, I stuck with the strange grouping of five range attackers and
it worked out quite well. Mass Haste, Mass Slow and Resurect True
were the spells I used almost exclusively. When I made my first trip
down into Necromancer land I ran into Ibn something or other
Necromancer who was waltzing around with 1342 Vampire Lords and about
350 Bone Dragons, with 230 ghosts just for good measure (I had the
crystal ball). I decided she (he?, don't know, strange picture) would
not be the best place to start
So I took advantage of some of the AI's weaknesses (for that matter,
going down there with 5 stacks of shooters would have been nuts
against a human opponent) and started taking castles. I started in
the east and dimension doored west, taking castles and lesser heros
("gee, you only 230 Bone dragons- no problem") as I went. As I hoped,
Ibn (along with the 6 or 7 others) followed along behind me retaking
the castles (I bought what few bone dragons and vampire lords were
there and left them) and putting some of their personal troops in the
garrison. By the time I took the west most castle, they had started
to spread themselves out pretty well. There's a little patch of land
on the far west end river bank so I DD'd there and summoned a boat and
headed back to the east.
By the time I got to the north east (above Xanadu) I had met up with a
resupply ship with some more troops. By this time, they had taken
back all the castles and spread out. So, I went in again and did the
same thing. This time, I mopped up every hero along the way moving
from east to west again. By the time I finished (I think about 20
battles or so for the two trips) I had lost a grand total of 2 Arch
Magi. Here's what I went in with the second time:
Kalindra- 12/22/27/21 stats
Titans- 123
Orc Chiefs- 825
Arch Magi- 167
Hobbits- 1019
War Trolls- 285
That's the order I had them stacked in too.
Now obviously I would have had big troubles if the Vampire Lords
attacked my hobbits, but they and the dragons predictably went for the
Titans. Whenever they got next to the Titans, the Orcs used one move
to step away so they could shoot again.
With mass haste and ressurecting Titans, it was pretty easy for the
rest of the shooters to eliminate the big stacks of dragons and vamps.
I had a few problems once when one also had a stack of 400 some Power
Lichs, but it still worked out ok.
Well, that was one loooong game. I think I could maybe get it down
into the six month range if I played it again (I'd be watching for
that initial dimension dooring dragon lady) but I'd be real surprised
if I could get it under six months.
Overall, I ranked a Phoenix for the campaign. When I go back and play
it again in a few months, I'll take the long path instead of the
direct one.