HOMM3: SPOILER -- Campaign 2, Scenario 3 -- What the hell?
Joel Leach
Queen" and first 2 in "Devils and Dungeons") but the sixth one is
killing me. This is the one with the 3 month time frame to capture the
"Steadwick Castle".
I started with three towns and built up all that I could (only the
Inferno town had seventh level (Black Dragons) creature, the Dungeon
went to sixth and the Castle wouldn't let me build past fifth level
creature). Anyway, after 2 months game time, I had managed to get a
stack of 12 Black Dragons, 240 Imps, 50 Cerberi, ~80 Medusa Queens, 20 -
25 Horned Demons and around 30 Pit Fiends. I took the westernmost
garrison out and only lost a couple of creatures from a couple of lesser
stacks. I wandered over to Steadwick and my turn ended just as it came
into view. On the computers turn, a hero came out of the castle and
attacked me with "225 Cavalries, 87 Crusaders, 45 Upgraded Cavalries,
250 Griffins, around 180 Halberdiers, over 100 archers and some other
stuff I don't remember. The upshot is that I was toasted in a heartbeat
(did I mention that the hero had an artifact that prevented magic
casting, although that was not a big deal since my formerly powerful
hero from a previous campaign scenarion (23 attack, 19 defend, 17 power
and 15 knowledge) had destroyed enough brain cells through really good
drugs to drop her to 5 attack, 7 defend, 5 power and 6 knowledge).
I am going to step waaaaay out on a limb here and guess that this
scenario can not be won by fighting but must be won using some tactical
strategy. Anyone care to confirm this for me? If anyone has won this
scenario by defeating their hero, please let me know, I want to buy them
a beer. Thanks.
I know that the cutscene and dialogue for this scenario say that an army
has landed so I am assuming that is the reason for so many troops (sure
as hell didn't create them in 2 months) just suddenly popping up in
Steadwick. Not whining or bitchin' about computer starting off with
much more than I have.
--
Joel
The pinnacle of open systems is: when moving from vendor to vendor, the
design flaws stay the same.
'82 GL1100i "unamed soldier" at this point.
<SIGTERM>
Cyan_Iguana
lure the hero out of the castle and then take it over with a second
hero. See the hero leaves the castle virtually undefended, so you
waltz in and win! I cannot wait to try it.
Han
news:7c8s77$pn$1...@news-1.news.gte.net...
>I breezed through the first five scenarios (the 3 in "Long Live the
>Queen" and first 2 in "Devils and Dungeons") but the sixth one is
>killing me. This is the one with the 3 month time frame to capture the
>"Steadwick Castle".
>scenario can not be won by fighting but must be won using some tactical
>strategy. Anyone care to confirm this for me? If anyone has won this
>scenario by defeating their hero, please let me know, I want to buy them
>a beer. Thanks.
I beat this one last night, and I don't remember using more than one stack
of 2 black dragons among my other stacks of mediocre units. What I did was
expand early with lots of low level heroes all over the map. After taking
all the townes south of the garrisons forts and the underground townes, I
began my "embargo strategy". I had one hero with tons of units land a ship
on land above the garrisons and moved her around to take the resource
centers away from the enemy. Below, I pounded away at one of the garrisons
for about 6 or 7 battles until one of my heroes broke through. After a
while (at 2 months 2 weeks) I was producing much more than the enemy, and
his heroes couldn't get out of Steadwick without losing. Apparently, the
computer liked to keep the majority of his troops in there instead of
splitting them up too much. After a little while, I went in and beat
Steadwick on one try with large stacks of mediocre units.
--
...Han (El Pollo)
http://www.gamepost.com/editorials.html
=======================================
Guillaume Jay
>I breezed through the first five scenarios (the 3 in "Long Live the
>Queen" and first 2 in "Devils and Dungeons") but the sixth one is
>killing me. This is the one with the 3 month time frame to capture the
>"Steadwick Castle".
AI bugged for me on this one, happilly.
I sent (flying) a moderately strong stack at the beginning of
month 3, near the castle.
It was full of troops.
End of turn, I make a start for the "rally point", to get a morale bonus
before trying a suicidal attack.
The computer created a hero in this castle, and sent it (without
using all his movement allowance, he could easily have attacked me)
outside.
Next day : i attacked the castle : 28 halberdiers. The new hero had taken
nearly all the troops. Easy victory.
HOMM3 AI is usually quite good, but not this time. I won't complain :)
Guillaume
--
Homepage: http://perso.wanadoo.fr/gjay/ (MultiplayerCiv2)
ICQ : 3644708 Email : j...@mail.dotcom.fr
A nation ... is just a society for hating foreigners.
- Olaf Stapledon
Sean Ormond
>
>I am going to step waaaaay out on a limb here and guess that this
>scenario can not be won by fighting but must be won using some tactical
>strategy. Anyone care to confirm this for me?
He can certainly be beat, but it requires more long-term planning than was
required in any of the previous scenarios. I think that's what makes this
guy seem so tough... It's not simply that he's so powerful, it's that he's
so powerful *relative* to everything that's come before - it catches you off
guard, especially if you've been getting slack in your production.
Anyway, after he slapped me down the first time, I didn't think he would be
beatable without starting over from scratch, but I restored the game at the
point at which I got the "three to four week" warning. I maximized
production of Black Dragons (which I hadn't even bothered to use before) and
Arch Devils. I also recruited a huge force of Arch Devils from the NE
corner of the map and grabbed the powerful artifact they were guarding. I
dumped it all on my strongest hero and attacked the General in his castle,
beating him down as badly as he had beaten me the first time. It was
actually pretty amazing how much more powerful my guys had become after a
few weeks of focused production and recruitment.
Speaking of the strength of the General's army relative to earlier
encounters, a big battle up to that point might have earned about
6,000-7,000 experience.... Taking Steadwick earned me around 25,000 xp, 8
powerful artifacts, and bumped my strongest hero up three levels! I
couldn't do anything with him, of course, but it was a truly epic battle!
Of course, you could just lure him out and sneak in behind his back, hehe.
Where's my Guinness, btw! :)
Sean
BS
> This is the one with the 3 month time frame to capture the
>"Steadwick Castle".
Here is how I won. I had a superhero running around the map kicking butt!
I had about 15 black dragons, and 12 arch devils, plus an assortment of
highlevels heroes. ( the time was about 2nd month , week 1)
I thought I got to the level 7 creatures about as fast as possible, and
was feeling confident.
I first ventured into the region of Steadwick with a scout, a level one
hero with 1 imp. The hero from Steadwick left the castle with a mere
army of 65 halbediers and attacked my scout. Well, my plan was set.
I'll go with my superhero and its squire (a scout hero that runs along with
it,
to pick up resources, flag mines etc.) and lure out the hero and kill it.
Well, the hero came out of the castle with all the creatures, and crushed
me.
Just like you.
>attacked me with "225 Cavalries, 87 Crusaders, 45 Upgraded Cavalries,
>250 Griffins, around 180 Halberdiers, over 100 archers and some other
>stuff I don't remember. The upshot is that I was toasted in a heartbeat
The hero returned to the castle.
Well, I was thinking "AW CRAP!" and was about to start the scenario over,
but figured I'd run up my 2nd here (very powerful magician) and see what
it could do. It would take about 4 days to get him over to Steadwick, with
upgraded genies, and lots of archmages, plus other creatures.
Recall that I still have my squire, who is very fast, and had visited a
stable that week, near the castle. On the comps turn, the powerful hero
LEAVES THE CASTLE WITH ALL CREATURES to visit the nearby
windmill, and stays there. My squire zips into the castle (it was unguarded)
and I WIN!
A cheap win, but I'll take an opportunistic win anytime.
[ the only cheap victory is a 'load saved game" victory ]
(incidentally I had the Orb of no-magic, captured it earlier)
Christoph Nahr
>I breezed through the first five scenarios (the 3 in "Long Live the
>Queen" and first 2 in "Devils and Dungeons") but the sixth one is
>killing me. This is the one with the 3 month time frame to capture the
>"Steadwick Castle".
I guess you have to make a beeline for Steadwick and systematically
isolate it from all resources if you want a fair win on this scenario.
I expanded normally from my starting towns and simply didn't have a
chance when I finally arrived at Steadwick, already close to the 3
months limit. No way to outproduce him in the few remaining weeks.
So I just waited until he left the castle to visit a windmill and left
the castle virtually unguarded...
--
Chris Nahr (christo...@uumail.xxde, remove xx to reply by e-mail)
See my HoMM3 Manual Addenda at http://uuhome.de/christoph.nahr/
R. Chris Heck
: Well, I was thinking "AW CRAP!" and was about to start the scenario over,
: but figured I'd run up my 2nd here (very powerful magician) and see what
: it could do. It would take about 4 days to get him over to Steadwick, with
: upgraded genies, and lots of archmages, plus other creatures.
: Recall that I still have my squire, who is very fast, and had visited a
: stable that week, near the castle. On the comps turn, the powerful hero
: LEAVES THE CASTLE WITH ALL CREATURES to visit the nearby
: windmill, and stays there. My squire zips into the castle (it was unguarded)
: and I WIN!
Same thing happened to me; I had tried to play the D&D campaign before
spoils of war, only to hit the third scenario would be extremely
difficult. I went back and play Spoils of War and then restarted D&D and
made sure I has 8 heroes in the first scenario upgraded as much as
possible, and at least four of those had Chain Lightning and had learned
Basci Air Magic. I then put the Chain Lightning to good use in the early
parts of the Steadwick scenario. I built up my forces continuously, took
all of the cities except the one to the far northeast, and
when the 12th week came, I had two powerful stacks, one Inferno and one
Dungeon, with about 17 level heroes with many artifacts, waiting to attack
Steadwick. The General came out and sat at the
windmill; the Inferno stack moved - I had to fight two battles and two
heroes, but both were pretty weak and were easily destroyed by my forces.
So after all that buildup and planinng, an AI screwup prevented the
climactic battle
--
R. Chris Heck | I have never made but one prayer to God, a very short
Amherst College '97 | one: "O Lord, make my enemies ridiculous." And God
U of Chicago | granted it. - Voltaire
Law School '00 |
Travis Oates
stack in the castle.
It wasn't easy.
One of the biggest things you HAVE to do in this scenario is to capture the
RED DRAGON creature mill down below your Dungeon town. If your heroes are
pretty powerful from the last scenario, then you can do it before the first
week is over. By picking up the extra red dragon every week, then upgrading
it you can be building 4 Black Dragons very week. (1 + 1 for the citadel, +1
for the creature generator, + the one you pick up.)
I basically then just maxed out the monsters on all of the castles I could
get my hands on and send my biggest heroes with the biggest stacks I could
muster over to the castle on the last week of the campaign. I then
systematically attacked the castle with everything I had, leaving the Dragon
stack last. (That stack had 22 Black Dragons in it, BTW.)
I was able to take him out, but it took every thing I had.
It was also incredibly fun.
Love this game.
Shryke
Joel Leach wrote in message <7c8s77$pn$1...@news-1.news.gte.net>...
>I breezed through the first five scenarios (the 3 in "Long Live the
>Queen" and first 2 in "Devils and Dungeons") but the sixth one is
>killing me. This is the one with the 3 month time frame to capture the
>"Steadwick Castle".
>
>I started with three towns and built up all that I could (only the
>Inferno town had seventh level (Black Dragons) creature, the Dungeon
>went to sixth and the Castle wouldn't let me build past fifth level
>creature). Anyway, after 2 months game time, I had managed to get a
>stack of 12 Black Dragons, 240 Imps, 50 Cerberi, ~80 Medusa Queens, 20 -
>25 Horned Demons and around 30 Pit Fiends. I took the westernmost
>garrison out and only lost a couple of creatures from a couple of lesser
>stacks. I wandered over to Steadwick and my turn ended just as it came
>into view. On the computers turn, a hero came out of the castle and
>attacked me with "225 Cavalries, 87 Crusaders, 45 Upgraded Cavalries,
>250 Griffins, around 180 Halberdiers, over 100 archers and some other
>stuff I don't remember. The upshot is that I was toasted in a heartbeat
>(did I mention that the hero had an artifact that prevented magic
>casting, although that was not a big deal since my formerly powerful
>hero from a previous campaign scenarion (23 attack, 19 defend, 17 power
>and 15 knowledge) had destroyed enough brain cells through really good
>drugs to drop her to 5 attack, 7 defend, 5 power and 6 knowledge).
>
>I am going to step waaaaay out on a limb here and guess that this
>scenario can not be won by fighting but must be won using some tactical
>strategy. Anyone care to confirm this for me? If anyone has won this
>scenario by defeating their hero, please let me know, I want to buy them
>a beer. Thanks.
>
waldby julian f
>I actually beat this one just last night...and I did it by taking on the big
>stack in the castle.
>It wasn't easy.
>One of the biggest things you HAVE to do in this scenario is to capture the
>RED DRAGON creature mill down below your Dungeon town. If your heroes are
>pretty powerful from the last scenario, then you can do it before the first
>week is over. By picking up the extra red dragon every week, then upgrading
>it you can be building 4 Black Dragons very week. (1 + 1 for the citadel, +1
>for the creature generator, + the one you pick up.)
You can actually build 5 Black Dragons per week. Make sure you only
flag the Dragon Cave, and no other external dwellings. Then, build a
Portal of Summoning in the Dungeon. This summons a Red Dragon, and you
STILL have a Red Dragon waiting for you at the external Dragon Cave.
I think it might be a bug. It certainly doesn't act like you would
expect - with the summoner bring in a dragon from the external
dwelling. I'm not complaining, however. It helped me increase my
number of dragonsto a large level.
Julian
--
It is not heresy, and I will not recant.