Heroes 5 Tribes Of The East Full Version 70
Hedy Madrid
[New Mod] Might and...
12 minutes ago by Tomsod (97 replies)
in Might and Magic
I think you've got the same bug as MAW, in that if you buy something from a shop, then immediately save...
Similar to the previous campaign, we will develop the other main hero, Kujin the Shaman, in the second mission, starting from level 1. Kujin's mission is to convince a total of four clans to join the new chief Gotai, by reaching the gate of their respective Stronghold towns (A-Orange, B-Brown, D-Green and C-Teal). It has to be Kujin to do the negociation.
That's sounds pretty easy, because there is no fight necessary at the castle gates. Well, In fact this is an extremely difficult mission on heroic for the first month! This is a Mission 1 with Mission 4 enemies! I am not even sure whether I can pull it through again. Therefore, I will try to cover everything that I did in detail, assuming heroic is what you are on. If you are playing on a lower difficulty, you can be more liberal and probably reach the goals a lot faster. There may be alternative strategies, which I will leave it for you to explore.
Toulain comes with some upgraded creatures that does not mix with Kujin's. You are probably thinking of combining them - so which of the upgrades are better? For tier 1 go for the Goblin Trappers. Tier 2 and 3 is a choice between offense and defense. A simple rule of thumb on a tough heroic mission is to focus on Attack. Normally, if you let your enemy's big stack to hit you first, you are taking unecessary losses. Therefore, go for the Centaur Nomad and Mauler for tier 2-3.
However, when I played the mission (heroic) I purposely delayed my visit to the Orange town to Day 1, Week 2. Usually I don't like to waste any turn, but our situation here is special. There is NO other place (other than the easy Sawmill) we can afford to visit during the first week even with Kujin & Toulain's starting creatures combined. I got torn apart even by the Ore Pit stack! The neutral stacks guarding the resources are just nasty - lots of shooters and casters. Here comes a list:
As you can see, there is nothing we can do in Week 1 after flagging the Sawmill. If you claim the Orange town yourself, you are going to spend resources from your own account to build it up. There is a guaranteed net loss of everything for sure. Why not let the Orange AI (on heroic the AIs are millionaires from the start!) build it for you - for free? The picture on the left shows what I got on Day 8. I kept my strating 10,000G and 5 resources of each. Pretty nice!
So why do I claim the Orange town on Day 1, Week 2, but not later? Well I hoped so originally, but whenever we convert a town in this mission, all of its current garrison armies are erased (including roaming heroes out there). The AIs automatically hire available troops at the beginning of a week, so if I wait longer, I would lose the second week growth of creatures (I already lost the first week production, 13 Centaurs). That's not a good thing because tough battles are coming soon.
The free Orange hero (Toulain) starts with the War Machine skill. This used to be a junk skill, because when your army grows large, the power of the ballista becomes negligible. Not anymore - did you see what Orlando's Ballista can do? It killed my 30 Ghost dragons in one firing round - that's even more powerful than a full tier-7 stack! You can also reach that power with Expert War Machine (Ballista - Triple Ballista) + Attack (Archery - Flaming Arrows). Flaming Arrows ignores target's defense - that's what makes the Ballista so powerful.
With this Ballista of 1500G, every low-army hero suddenly becomes a walking weapon of mass destruction. The enemy can't even Frenzy / Puppet Master / Slow the little guys operating the War Machines because they are controlled by yourself. The earliest possible level for Toulain and Kujin to reach flaming triple Ballista is level 9. But you have to be ultra lucky to get proper feats of War Machines and Attack to show up for Kujin early 8 levels in a row. But if that really happens, use Kujin as your main hero. Otherwise use Toulain. You will have more than enough EXP later to push Kujin to the level cap.
p.s. In this expansion (v3.0), every race can get Flaming Arrows and Triple Ballista. According to the excellent fan manual, the power of Ballista is proportional to the sum of the hero's Attack and Knowledge, so even a magic hero can do a lot of damage with it. (Now you know why I recommend the Moon Blade artifact - to make your most deadly weapon even more powerful.)
On heroic, honestly there is probably no other way than Triple Ballista + Flaming Arrows for this mission. Your army is too weak and the challenges are too tough. You cannot afford better creatures unless you flag the mines - but you cannot because you will be shot to pieces. When I cleared everything I could in my quarter, Toulain was level 10 and the really tough battle came. This means you can mostly throw away ONE useless skill point on something not on the path.
Right after the Shrine level up, head down to visit the Cript just east of Town (A). You should be able to beat the undeads here rather easily and collect a healthy sum of cash to get yourself a Mercury+1/Turn in the town. Next, go flag the Ore Pit. This is not an easy battle as the Wind Dancers run really fast. It is likely that you don't have time to protect your Centaurs even with lots of 1-unit Goblin stacks. But there is a better strategy:
The specialty of Goblin Trappers is to set Snares. If the trap works, the enemy will travel less distance - up to 2 tiles. If the trap fails the enemy is not delayed, but the action of the Trappers stack is. The smaller your stack, and the higher-tier and larger-stack the victim is, the less likely the trap works. (See the fan manual for details.) Each stack can only have one snare. If you set another one the old snare disappears automatically.
Now comes the beauty of probability - all of your 1-unit Goblin Trappers have a small chance of delaying the action of the elves. Even if there is a 80% chance the Elves are not delayed for each trap, the chance of the elves safely passing through 4 consecutive traps reduces to 40%. And, your main trapper stack's success chance is much better than 20%. With a series of traps accurately planted on the AI's predictable advancing route, your Centaurs will have one or two more rounds to take down the elves. Perfect victory is possible!
A brown (Tan) hero is visiting you very soon - for me it comes in the middle of week 2, right after I flagged the Ore Pit. Pull back your main hero and give him everything to defend in town A, and move Kujin as far away from the brown hero as possible. Build the second level of wall (the one that gives you 50% creature growth bonus). Use your Ballista and Centaurs to thin down the opponent's Centaurs. Hopefully most of your Centaurs survive the battle!
The first Brown hero has likely cleared a path for you, and there won't be another brown hero for... about two weeks. It is time to rush out and flag the Sulfur Pit, defended by slow melee units. Battle other melee stacks to accumulate EXP points for Toulain, focusing on Triple Ballista + Flaming Arrows. If you have a choice, give Triple Ballista a priority. You can find a Sextant to the west (a green X). It will be very useful later.
Hopefully by now your Toulain has obtained Triple Ballista. We are now able to flag some harder mines defended by shooters and casters. The trick is to give Toulain 7 stacks of 1-unit goblins (give the rest of the army to Kujin first). If you enter the battle and see 4 stacks of enemies - load the game because you are going down. If you see 3 stacks, though, be happy because you'll win. Use the Ballista to kill the earliest stack that comes next. You can flag the Gem mine easily this way.
Actually, later on you might still stand a chance if you see four stacks. When you build up the second-level "mage guild" in the town, you might get the war cry "Fear My Roar". By showing your ugly teeth and probably releasing a foul breath, your can seriously scare off your dentist, er I mean an enemy stack. It starts to run amok and and its next action is also delayed significantly. (Thus, the victim stack cannot shoot at your 1-unit Goblin anytime soon.) The chance of this war cry's success is related to your hero's level and the stack's tier and size. Your hero has to be at least level 6 to learn Fear My Roar, the most useful war cry for quite a while.
It is now also the right time to clear the stack of wolves (3) blocking the alternative way to your town (A). The wolves are really annoying because they can multiply at point blank. There is a pair of Boots of Swift Journey (green X) just beside the wolves, guarded by more Druids. In my game the druids were always 4-stacked and I had to pick it up much later. Similarly the Crystal Mine may be managable now. The Gold Mine is still too tough because each dwarf stack can take two ballista shots. Indeed, it is possible to flag each of the mine if you are willing to make sacrifices - but I don't think the gain is worth it. Your tough battle is coming soon and you need to have as many Centaurs as possible.
In the beginning of Week 4, the second Brown hero was on his way. This time they bring a much larger army. Should you still defend in the town? You can certainly win that way, yet in my game I saw a good chance to break loose here - let's take a look at this picture.
The AI of the Brown hero has its priority set at a weak Kujin only if Kujin is (almost) within his reach for the next turn. I was able to use Kujin as a bait and lure it to travel in a big circle. The chase was really close - the Brown hero was touching Kujin's back! In the meantime, Toulain purchased everything he could afford from town (A) and head straight to the Garrison (4). You must pass through this garrison to reach the brown town, and the garrison army was twice as large as everything I had (and I took troop conservation to the extreme, you know)!
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