I replayed this mission on Heroic, with the all campaigns in TOTE mod, and had a different experience this time around. First my builds.
Raelag
-Summoning & Light Magic, Sorcery, & Enlightenment
(I found Destructive magic wasn't that useful on Raelag, so I went for Enlightenment for more power)
Shadya
-Dark, Destructive, & Summoning Magic, Enlightenment.
(I found Shadya pushed onto the backburner & rather useless when I gave her Light instead of Summoning last time. I would have gone with sorcery instead of enlightenment, but it wasn't offered, but Enlightenment was by a witch hut)
First things first, Shadya can take out the throng of blood furies with no causalities by fielding just Minotaur's and using vampirism.
Second, for me the first demon lord moved and attacked me (perhaps because it's the TOTE mod), the other 2 just sat there and leveled up and gained more troops doing nothing.
I had Raelag invade town #2 with an army of 30 blood sisters, he won without causalities due to only 1 scout guarding the place. Once week #2 came Lethos and Grawl and both invaded town #2 at the same time, Lethos 1 day earlier then Grawl. Lethos had a HUGE army, rated 'deadly', and I was certain that Raelag was screwed with just 30 blood sisters and a week's spawn of the first 4 tier's of creatures, however I got REALLY lucky. Lethos decided once I was down to just 5 minotaur guards and summons to cut and run, even though he was probably just a few turns away from victory.
With Lethos and his 127 assassins, 50+ blood furies, and 70+ Minotaur's gone I was forced to abandon town #2 to Grawl since I could hardly take on his army of demons with just 5 minotaurs. I hired another hero at town #1 and sent them towards Raelag to give him town #1's reinforcements. Red took town #2 back from me, then Raelag took it back with town #1's reinforcements, fortunately Grawl was kind enough to build the dragon spire and buy up most of the artifacts for me, so I got a lot in return for losing town #2 for a day.
Next Shadya had to fight off another invasion at town #1 from Yrbeth with little more then a minotaur meat shield and summoned phoenix.
I seized a few more mines near my base and at the start of week #3 had to defend against Segref's invasion with Raelag. Then I sent Raelag to conquer town #4 the day before the next week began.
Week #4 I tried to go conquer town #7, but got lost along the way and realized I could only take town #3 before the week was up, so I seized it, causing the next demonlord, Deleb to come. Deleb had a moderate sized army but level 1 stats, and she didn't move.
At the end of week #4 I lost town #4, so I decided to take over town #6 next so the computer could attack me from fewer directions. I lost town #3 in the process, but not before shipping the entire week's growth off to town #1.
With town #6 under my control, and by now a large army on Raelag the counter attack was swift. Raelag's 30+ deep hydras were able to defend and regenerate (aided by regenerate spell and arcane shield) while summoned phoenix and elements killed everything. I seized town's #3, #7, & #4, and then left one of the computer's super heroes with a huge army standing outside town #5 while Raelag and Shadya leveled up to the max and got all the stat boosts.
The Warlock → The Cultists
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ShadowLiberal
- Golem
- Posts: 641
- Joined: 27 Mar 2010
- Location: Shadow Land
The Warlock → The Cultists
This is definitely the hardest heroic mission I've ever played. i am an experienced player with lots of 'black dragon' ratings from various campaigns on the hardest settings, and I am having a lot of difficulty.
Both my heroes were at max level 18 from past mission, with all spells. Raelag expert summoning and destructive; Shadya expert destructive and dark. Both never offered light magic, so that isn't an issue.
Problem was that I gave both logistics (it is my custom and has proven extremely useful most of the time). But expert logistics and pathfinding take up 4 skill points which could easily be given to enlightenment or spent on things like erratic mana.
Lack of mana is fatal in this map. I've fought it tons of times on heroic 1.6 and there is just no way I can win with my Raelag and Shadya builds. I've won this on hard before with the same Raelag build (logistics, summoning, destructive, sorcery, defense) but on heroic...
Later...
I prayed to the Deus ex Machina for help... also known as myself (since I am the God controlling things outside the Machine). Lowered difficulty to hard, and sigh. It became a cakewalk. Lethos was a laugh and the other enemies even worse. I found myself deliberately losing troops (ie dragging out the battle and not wiping out enemy ranged with fireball) because I was worried about them fleeing.
It is really very, very hard to script a map well enough to offer just enough challenge at each difficulty level. Looks like I have to admit this is one map I have never beaten on heroic.
Edited on Sat, Apr 28 2012, 15:30 by cjlee
Both my heroes were at max level 18 from past mission, with all spells. Raelag expert summoning and destructive; Shadya expert destructive and dark. Both never offered light magic, so that isn't an issue.
Problem was that I gave both logistics (it is my custom and has proven extremely useful most of the time). But expert logistics and pathfinding take up 4 skill points which could easily be given to enlightenment or spent on things like erratic mana.
Lack of mana is fatal in this map. I've fought it tons of times on heroic 1.6 and there is just no way I can win with my Raelag and Shadya builds. I've won this on hard before with the same Raelag build (logistics, summoning, destructive, sorcery, defense) but on heroic...
Later...
I prayed to the Deus ex Machina for help... also known as myself (since I am the God controlling things outside the Machine). Lowered difficulty to hard, and sigh. It became a cakewalk. Lethos was a laugh and the other enemies even worse. I found myself deliberately losing troops (ie dragging out the battle and not wiping out enemy ranged with fireball) because I was worried about them fleeing.
It is really very, very hard to script a map well enough to offer just enough challenge at each difficulty level. Looks like I have to admit this is one map I have never beaten on heroic.
Edited on Sat, Apr 28 2012, 15:30 by cjlee
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ShadowLiberal
- Golem
- Posts: 641
- Joined: 27 Mar 2010
- Location: Shadow Land
The Warlock → The Cultists
cjlee, on Heroic you really have no choice but to do a lot of reloading in the first 2 missions (and some cheating to see what skill offers you'll get so you know if you need to restart or not) and make sure you get Light Magic if you want to win on Heroic. Unfortunately you have only a 2% chance of getting it, so it can take a lot of reloading.
Too many enemy heroes have high level destructive magic (and high power & knowledge) and too much army for you to turn such overwhelming odds around on Heroic without Light Magic.
And you're right, lack of mana can be a big issue early on in this map. My last playthrough I took quite few causalities the day after I captured town #1, because another hero attacked Raelag before he could regain all his mana by resting in town. I only had enough mana to summon a phoenix and fire elements to win the battle, and the hero had destructive magic to get my units hiding behind the castle.
Congratulations on beating this mission on hard without Light Magic on either of your heroes though, that's not something that I've been able to do.
Too many enemy heroes have high level destructive magic (and high power & knowledge) and too much army for you to turn such overwhelming odds around on Heroic without Light Magic.
And you're right, lack of mana can be a big issue early on in this map. My last playthrough I took quite few causalities the day after I captured town #1, because another hero attacked Raelag before he could regain all his mana by resting in town. I only had enough mana to summon a phoenix and fire elements to win the battle, and the hero had destructive magic to get my units hiding behind the castle.
Congratulations on beating this mission on hard without Light Magic on either of your heroes though, that's not something that I've been able to do.
The Warlock → The Cultists
Hi Shadow Liberal
I appreciate your reply!
And I appreciate even more your praise! But it really wasn't hard (it was even extremely easy) to win on Hard difficulty without light magic. As I mentioned earlier, my Raelag and SHadya were both fully developed, meaning they had level 18, visited all stat bonuses, had all spells in their respective schools.
At the start of this map, my Raelag had no Summoning perks but was Master of Lightning (stun effect); my SHadya had two dark magic perks that I never used and Master of Ice which I used a lot.
On Hard, map was easy enough that I had Raelag hunt down Demon heroes for the challenge. (As you know, Inferno really loves an open battlefield so this was merely for extra challenge.)
I think one of the greatest concerns I have for walkthroughs is that sometimes they advise new players to depend on luck (not the in-game ability but the roll of the dice probability). It is very, very hard for Warlocks to get light magic and it is also an unnatural build that relies on access to mage vaults, dragon utopias and other castles in order to get light spells.
I feel a walkthrough writer is entitled to give whatever advice he likes, but it's not very helpful if his advice requires players to restart until an unusual ability or configuration is obtained. This map should be winnable on Easy no matter how badly a player built Raelag; it should be winnable on Normal for the average Level 17 Raelag with 1 expert spell school; it should be winnable on Hard for any Raelag at level 18 with 2 expert spell schools and all stat bonuses in previous maps. It should be winnable on Heroic if Raelag is a well built standard warlock (Destructive, Summoning, Sorcery, Enlightenment) in the hands of a good player like Wimfrits.
As I'm nowhere as good as Wimfrits, I don't consider myself entitled to win on Heroic. But when I lower the difficulty one notch and actual difficulty plunges to joke levels, it makes me shake my head and grouch.
Do you know that for Warcraft there are only 2 difficulty levels? Yet the game is extremely well balanced. I wish Heroes of MM could be just as well programmed.
The problem lies with the scripting. That which makes this map so hard on Heroic, makes it easy on other difficulties.
You get attacked too much early and too often. On Heroic that's fatal. But on Hard, once you survive the first two enemy heroes, you can counterattack and grab a second castle. That's because the first two enemy heroes are the guardians of the two castles nearest you.
The enemy is obsessed with Raelag so it won't take them back. And with 2 castles, you can outproduce any Demon attacker. Also, programming several more enemy heroes to attack Raelag in-castle is risky for the programmers. Raelag may be wiped out too easily to make this map winnable, but the enemy may also be donating free experience and free assistant heroes.
That's what happened to me. Once Raelag had 2 castles, I bunkered down and kept passing hydras and minotaurs (via Shadya Delivery Services) to Raelag. Raelag didn't have to hunt down the enemy alpha high level warlocks. He didn't have to penetrate the shroud and run the risk of being far away from home while the enemy attacked. He didn't even have to worry about a powerful enemy hero killing Shadya. Nival delivered all the high level enemy heroes on the map straight to Raelag's castle and they never bothered with Shadya cowering in a nearly empty castle. All Raelag did was sit tight as enemies made suicide attempts on his castle turrets. I even dragged out battles and lost extra troops so that I could target a perfect time to wipe out the enemy without him fleeing (i.e. cause enemy hero to abandon Blue's side and become hireable by me later).
This mission reminds me of a tadpole - a big head with pathetic tail. After the initially tense first 3 weeks, the mopup was pathetic. With 6 high level warlocks, it was a boring cakewalk. Very draggy since Raelag had to visit so many stat bonuses.
Edited on Tue, May 01 2012, 14:12 by cjlee
I appreciate your reply!
And I appreciate even more your praise! But it really wasn't hard (it was even extremely easy) to win on Hard difficulty without light magic. As I mentioned earlier, my Raelag and SHadya were both fully developed, meaning they had level 18, visited all stat bonuses, had all spells in their respective schools.
At the start of this map, my Raelag had no Summoning perks but was Master of Lightning (stun effect); my SHadya had two dark magic perks that I never used and Master of Ice which I used a lot.
On Hard, map was easy enough that I had Raelag hunt down Demon heroes for the challenge. (As you know, Inferno really loves an open battlefield so this was merely for extra challenge.)
I think one of the greatest concerns I have for walkthroughs is that sometimes they advise new players to depend on luck (not the in-game ability but the roll of the dice probability). It is very, very hard for Warlocks to get light magic and it is also an unnatural build that relies on access to mage vaults, dragon utopias and other castles in order to get light spells.
I feel a walkthrough writer is entitled to give whatever advice he likes, but it's not very helpful if his advice requires players to restart until an unusual ability or configuration is obtained. This map should be winnable on Easy no matter how badly a player built Raelag; it should be winnable on Normal for the average Level 17 Raelag with 1 expert spell school; it should be winnable on Hard for any Raelag at level 18 with 2 expert spell schools and all stat bonuses in previous maps. It should be winnable on Heroic if Raelag is a well built standard warlock (Destructive, Summoning, Sorcery, Enlightenment) in the hands of a good player like Wimfrits.
As I'm nowhere as good as Wimfrits, I don't consider myself entitled to win on Heroic. But when I lower the difficulty one notch and actual difficulty plunges to joke levels, it makes me shake my head and grouch.
Do you know that for Warcraft there are only 2 difficulty levels? Yet the game is extremely well balanced. I wish Heroes of MM could be just as well programmed.
The problem lies with the scripting. That which makes this map so hard on Heroic, makes it easy on other difficulties.
You get attacked too much early and too often. On Heroic that's fatal. But on Hard, once you survive the first two enemy heroes, you can counterattack and grab a second castle. That's because the first two enemy heroes are the guardians of the two castles nearest you.
The enemy is obsessed with Raelag so it won't take them back. And with 2 castles, you can outproduce any Demon attacker. Also, programming several more enemy heroes to attack Raelag in-castle is risky for the programmers. Raelag may be wiped out too easily to make this map winnable, but the enemy may also be donating free experience and free assistant heroes.
That's what happened to me. Once Raelag had 2 castles, I bunkered down and kept passing hydras and minotaurs (via Shadya Delivery Services) to Raelag. Raelag didn't have to hunt down the enemy alpha high level warlocks. He didn't have to penetrate the shroud and run the risk of being far away from home while the enemy attacked. He didn't even have to worry about a powerful enemy hero killing Shadya. Nival delivered all the high level enemy heroes on the map straight to Raelag's castle and they never bothered with Shadya cowering in a nearly empty castle. All Raelag did was sit tight as enemies made suicide attempts on his castle turrets. I even dragged out battles and lost extra troops so that I could target a perfect time to wipe out the enemy without him fleeing (i.e. cause enemy hero to abandon Blue's side and become hireable by me later).
This mission reminds me of a tadpole - a big head with pathetic tail. After the initially tense first 3 weeks, the mopup was pathetic. With 6 high level warlocks, it was a boring cakewalk. Very draggy since Raelag had to visit so many stat bonuses.
Edited on Tue, May 01 2012, 14:12 by cjlee
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ShadowLiberal
- Golem
- Posts: 641
- Joined: 27 Mar 2010
- Location: Shadow Land
The main difference I've found in the difficulty in Heroes 5 is that the computer starts with more units, and that's it, they don't really play any better on Hard or Heroic.
That and starting with less resources, and neutral stacks being larger and growing faster.
It's because of this that you really NEED light magic in Heroic. When you're going up armies of 120+ assassins, 50+ blood furies and Minotaur's, and a sizeable number of raiders and hydra's, plus a hero with powerful destructive magic, there's really no other way to win but reviving your own men.
In Mission #3 early on both you and your enemy basically just have an army of meat shields, since both sides have very powerful heroes and magic. You may be able to win one or two battles if it's a race to deal more destructive magic or summoning magic damage the fastest, but after that you'll run out of meat shields, especially against armies of over 100+ assassins. Raelag and Shadya can only have so much power when you start this mission, and the enemy heroes start at higher levels then you do.
That's part of why Light Magic tends to be overpowered in campaigns, because you can preserve your army much better with it.
That and starting with less resources, and neutral stacks being larger and growing faster.
It's because of this that you really NEED light magic in Heroic. When you're going up armies of 120+ assassins, 50+ blood furies and Minotaur's, and a sizeable number of raiders and hydra's, plus a hero with powerful destructive magic, there's really no other way to win but reviving your own men.
In Mission #3 early on both you and your enemy basically just have an army of meat shields, since both sides have very powerful heroes and magic. You may be able to win one or two battles if it's a race to deal more destructive magic or summoning magic damage the fastest, but after that you'll run out of meat shields, especially against armies of over 100+ assassins. Raelag and Shadya can only have so much power when you start this mission, and the enemy heroes start at higher levels then you do.
That's part of why Light Magic tends to be overpowered in campaigns, because you can preserve your army much better with it.
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SteelPanther
- Leprechaun
- Posts: 4
- Joined: 27 May 2013
The Warlock → The Cultists
Not sure if this is a bug in the game, but playing with Normal difficulty (patch 1.6) the inferno heroes didn't move throughout the whole mission - I had to send Raelag up the south stairs to fight them
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Wheeler Dealer
- Conscript
- Posts: 215
- Joined: 19 Jul 2009
- Location: Dallas, Texas
The Warlock → The Cultists
Hard 1.6. I have been able to win when I played Heroic but all the reloading just gets too tedious. Maybe I'll have to try this one on Heroic to see if I really can win.
As it was, there were a couple of critical reloads on Hard for this Mission.
I was angling toward the Ultimate Skill so I took Destructive Magic, Sorcery and Luck for Raelag. I added Enlightenment to go with the curious Defense Raelag was given at the start. Shayda came to me with Destructive and Dark Magic along with the still curious Defense. I added Sorcery and Logistics. She never got Empowered Spells even at the end of this mission. That made her less useful than Raelag for big battles.
She led armies of creatures to fight and Raelag took large stacks of Hydras along to take punishment while he did his awesome destruction. Toward the end of this mission Shayda got Puppet Master and Town Portal from the Dragon building. A hired level 20 Hero got Scholar and that made everything much easier.
The second day I took a city. I was developing nicely, mines of all types and prospects of shadow dragons by week end when I was attacked on Day 5 by a strong army with a high level hero. Some emergency hiring and maybe a reload to get a good hero in my town and the Blue Hero retreated. Raelag followed and took the second city on day 1 of week 2, great timing!
Before I could even get comfortable, I was attacked at the second town. Another reload, first to attempt a defense and then to get as many creatures out of town as possible to join up with one of my principal heroes. The Blue hero left a small garrison and headed southeast. This allowed me to retake the city before a castle could be built and then hunt down the blue hero with pretty much all my troops commanded by Raelag.
I was told about now to watch out for the Demons but they never moved.
I split my forces and sent Shayda and Raelag to explore. Now Blue attacks again and I'm scrambling back to safety. At the beginning of week three I was able to hire a Level 18 Kythra. She took a stack of minotaurs and went exploring. She was eventually trapped but she ran and I hired her back.
About week 4 or 5 Shayda captured the SW city and I was feeling better. Then she got trapped down that dead end before the week turned so she couldn't hire reinforcements. At one point I had to roll back two days to get out of this and that wasn't a sure thing. She had retreated behind the city's castle walls, bought some emerald slippers to pump up her Meteor Storm and and nearly won. I thought the big stack of Minotaur Guards she had might live long enough, but they were too close to the gate and when it collapsed it was game over.
I replayed the battle hoping to keep the minotaurs out of melee longer. The first time around I thought I was very lucky that Lethos had grouped most of his troops in one corner and I was able to pound 5 of his seven stacks repeatedly with Meteor Storm. This time I substituted Mass Decay for the first Meteor Storm and it made all the difference!
There was one more tight spot. Shayda was on one of the islands when a blue hero with a bigger army came through the portal, the match-up was rated "hard". She Summoned 20 or so top level creatures and that swung the danger level to "low" and the next turn she won the battle.
After this it was downhill! Mop up was boring compared to the difficult start!
At first gold was always a problem. I couldn't hire the creatures my towns were spawning. I took gold from every chest for the first part of the game. Then when I got up to 4 or 5 towns then the concern became experience for Raelag and Shayda. For a long time I took only experience from chests hoping to get to level 25 and then go use the tree on the west island. Neither ever had to use the tree to reach level 26.
After Shayda got Puppet Master I sent her to finish off the last stationary demon hero. I think she got level 25 from that battle and Raelag who had recently made 25 was promoted to 26 when that secondary objective was met.
It was fun1 Dealer
Edited on Wed, Oct 30 2013, 18:03 by Wheeler Dealer
As it was, there were a couple of critical reloads on Hard for this Mission.
I was angling toward the Ultimate Skill so I took Destructive Magic, Sorcery and Luck for Raelag. I added Enlightenment to go with the curious Defense Raelag was given at the start. Shayda came to me with Destructive and Dark Magic along with the still curious Defense. I added Sorcery and Logistics. She never got Empowered Spells even at the end of this mission. That made her less useful than Raelag for big battles.
She led armies of creatures to fight and Raelag took large stacks of Hydras along to take punishment while he did his awesome destruction. Toward the end of this mission Shayda got Puppet Master and Town Portal from the Dragon building. A hired level 20 Hero got Scholar and that made everything much easier.
The second day I took a city. I was developing nicely, mines of all types and prospects of shadow dragons by week end when I was attacked on Day 5 by a strong army with a high level hero. Some emergency hiring and maybe a reload to get a good hero in my town and the Blue Hero retreated. Raelag followed and took the second city on day 1 of week 2, great timing!
Before I could even get comfortable, I was attacked at the second town. Another reload, first to attempt a defense and then to get as many creatures out of town as possible to join up with one of my principal heroes. The Blue hero left a small garrison and headed southeast. This allowed me to retake the city before a castle could be built and then hunt down the blue hero with pretty much all my troops commanded by Raelag.
I was told about now to watch out for the Demons but they never moved.
I split my forces and sent Shayda and Raelag to explore. Now Blue attacks again and I'm scrambling back to safety. At the beginning of week three I was able to hire a Level 18 Kythra. She took a stack of minotaurs and went exploring. She was eventually trapped but she ran and I hired her back.
About week 4 or 5 Shayda captured the SW city and I was feeling better. Then she got trapped down that dead end before the week turned so she couldn't hire reinforcements. At one point I had to roll back two days to get out of this and that wasn't a sure thing. She had retreated behind the city's castle walls, bought some emerald slippers to pump up her Meteor Storm and and nearly won. I thought the big stack of Minotaur Guards she had might live long enough, but they were too close to the gate and when it collapsed it was game over.
I replayed the battle hoping to keep the minotaurs out of melee longer. The first time around I thought I was very lucky that Lethos had grouped most of his troops in one corner and I was able to pound 5 of his seven stacks repeatedly with Meteor Storm. This time I substituted Mass Decay for the first Meteor Storm and it made all the difference!
There was one more tight spot. Shayda was on one of the islands when a blue hero with a bigger army came through the portal, the match-up was rated "hard". She Summoned 20 or so top level creatures and that swung the danger level to "low" and the next turn she won the battle.
After this it was downhill! Mop up was boring compared to the difficult start!
At first gold was always a problem. I couldn't hire the creatures my towns were spawning. I took gold from every chest for the first part of the game. Then when I got up to 4 or 5 towns then the concern became experience for Raelag and Shayda. For a long time I took only experience from chests hoping to get to level 25 and then go use the tree on the west island. Neither ever had to use the tree to reach level 26.
After Shayda got Puppet Master I sent her to finish off the last stationary demon hero. I think she got level 25 from that battle and Raelag who had recently made 25 was promoted to 26 when that secondary objective was met.
It was fun1 Dealer
Edited on Wed, Oct 30 2013, 18:03 by Wheeler Dealer
The Warlock → The Cultists
I wanted to try Summoning for the first time with this hero.
But when I got to the 3rd map I could barely beat the first two heroes on Heroic.
It seemed to me more broken than the Barbarian Campaign in Heroes 4 where you had to beat hundreds of Pirates and Scouts with almost nothing but the Level 12 Hero.
So I had to start over again, drop Summoning and also Logistics.
The goal for the new run was to get the Resurrection spell and the Intelligence skill. Sorcery would have also been nice, but I think Enlightenment is more powerful.
In the 2nd map I reached the Witch Hut at level 16 with Expert Irresistable Magic, Luck, Destruction and Defense. I also had Basic Enlightenment. The Witch Hut gave me Life Magic! I got Resurrection from the Mages tower.
In my opinion, one way to win this 3rd scenario is to get:
- meteor shower (you can do thousands of damage with a lucky empowered roll)
- expert luck with warlock's luck
- empowered spells
- enlightenment with intelligence for a huge bonus to both spell power and mana pool (most of the bonus stats will go into spell power and attack, note that intelligence does not boost the mana regeneration)
- light magic with resurrection
- boots that boost earth damage
One lucky meteor shower will have the enemy running scared most of the times.
Also, I think Enlightenment is somewhat bugged (in a good way), by the end of the game Raelag had 24 more stat points than Shadya (33% more!). Two points come from the Arena in the first scenario. And I would expect Enlightenment to give 15 stats by level 30. So 7 points are unaccounted for.
But when I got to the 3rd map I could barely beat the first two heroes on Heroic.
It seemed to me more broken than the Barbarian Campaign in Heroes 4 where you had to beat hundreds of Pirates and Scouts with almost nothing but the Level 12 Hero.
So I had to start over again, drop Summoning and also Logistics.
The goal for the new run was to get the Resurrection spell and the Intelligence skill. Sorcery would have also been nice, but I think Enlightenment is more powerful.
In the 2nd map I reached the Witch Hut at level 16 with Expert Irresistable Magic, Luck, Destruction and Defense. I also had Basic Enlightenment. The Witch Hut gave me Life Magic! I got Resurrection from the Mages tower.
In my opinion, one way to win this 3rd scenario is to get:
- meteor shower (you can do thousands of damage with a lucky empowered roll)
- expert luck with warlock's luck
- empowered spells
- enlightenment with intelligence for a huge bonus to both spell power and mana pool (most of the bonus stats will go into spell power and attack, note that intelligence does not boost the mana regeneration)
- light magic with resurrection
- boots that boost earth damage
One lucky meteor shower will have the enemy running scared most of the times.
Also, I think Enlightenment is somewhat bugged (in a good way), by the end of the game Raelag had 24 more stat points than Shadya (33% more!). Two points come from the Arena in the first scenario. And I would expect Enlightenment to give 15 stats by level 30. So 7 points are unaccounted for.
Re: The Warlock → The Cultists
Am playing this now on the Heroes Mod 5.5. v5.586.
The 5.5 mod has some conflict with scripted pathing and movements in the official campaigns. This means that anything that involves enemy heroes moving to attack you on Day X or as a result of Fulfilling Condition Y (such as owning 2 castles) is messed up.
This won't break the game, but it will make the game too easy usually because you don't get attacked by powerful armies.
At the same time, this map is near-unwinnable on Impossible v5.5. The 5.5 mod has changed the spells you get in the mage vaults and dragon vaults. This mod is intended to make the multiplayer fair to all parties, and it is perfectly sensible. But in the context of playing the official campaigns on the 5.5 mod, it makes it impossible for Raelag to learn Resurrection and Summon Phoenix.
Furthermore the 5.5 mod has changed the Dungeon spell schools to Dark+Destructive. That means no more summoning. On v5.5, you can only fight this map using Dark or Destructive magic. Because v5.5 nerfed Frenzy to work only on your own troops, you can't hide in your castle and Frenzy the enemy's Blood Furies or Cerberus to kill their own side.
Further more the v5.5 mod has given Might heroes the ability to learn Armourer, Counterspell and other skills that greatly increase magic resistance. That is awesome for multiplayer gaming, but means this campaign just got far harder than its makers intended. When playing this on 5.5, all enemy might heroes made effective use of counterspell. I had to cast 'expensive' spells several times (Empowered Armageddon) in order to drain the enemy mana from counterspell, before I was finally was able to make my spells work.
If the scripted pathing worked on h5.5 and the Demons were able to attack me with their vast armies of Imps plus the counterspell ability, I would have been a goner.
My Raelag started this map with 7 skill points allocated to Summoning Magic and Light magic+ their perks. With no way to get light magic or summoning magic. Shadya had 4 wasted skill points on Light magic+perk.
Under such conditions it is truly impossible to survive this map. So I opened the cheat console.
I do not know how to use cheat console to lose skills, and I could not use it to add Enlightenment either because Raelag already had 6 skills. However, since I never used Light or Summoning magic (and didn't have the spells anyway), I had to simulate swapping out Light and Summoning for Enlightenment. So I cheated by adding 5 to Spellpower and 5 to Knowledge at the start of Week 3. That is when Raelag is level 20, so would get 6 points added to his stats if I had Expert Enlightenment instead of Expert Light Magic.
The remaining 4 points were added to his knowledge to simulate getting Intelligence as a perk of Enlightenment.
At the end of this mission, when Raelag is Level 26, I will add another 2 to Spellpower and 1 to knowledge. Even if Raelag does not make it to level 26 (and it was a struggle to get that much experience in the past as well - I typically got R to 26 and Shadya to 24), I will assume he maxed out his level cap which he would have had I gotten him Enlightenment instead of Light Magic earlier. So I will use the cheat to bring him to level 26 and Shadya to 24.
Due to lack of attack from Demons, this map is easier in h5.5 than h5. If Magnomagus is ever to solve the pathing/ movement scripts, he will also need to nerf the demons a bit to make them manageable.
The 5.5 mod has some conflict with scripted pathing and movements in the official campaigns. This means that anything that involves enemy heroes moving to attack you on Day X or as a result of Fulfilling Condition Y (such as owning 2 castles) is messed up.
This won't break the game, but it will make the game too easy usually because you don't get attacked by powerful armies.
At the same time, this map is near-unwinnable on Impossible v5.5. The 5.5 mod has changed the spells you get in the mage vaults and dragon vaults. This mod is intended to make the multiplayer fair to all parties, and it is perfectly sensible. But in the context of playing the official campaigns on the 5.5 mod, it makes it impossible for Raelag to learn Resurrection and Summon Phoenix.
Furthermore the 5.5 mod has changed the Dungeon spell schools to Dark+Destructive. That means no more summoning. On v5.5, you can only fight this map using Dark or Destructive magic. Because v5.5 nerfed Frenzy to work only on your own troops, you can't hide in your castle and Frenzy the enemy's Blood Furies or Cerberus to kill their own side.
Further more the v5.5 mod has given Might heroes the ability to learn Armourer, Counterspell and other skills that greatly increase magic resistance. That is awesome for multiplayer gaming, but means this campaign just got far harder than its makers intended. When playing this on 5.5, all enemy might heroes made effective use of counterspell. I had to cast 'expensive' spells several times (Empowered Armageddon) in order to drain the enemy mana from counterspell, before I was finally was able to make my spells work.
If the scripted pathing worked on h5.5 and the Demons were able to attack me with their vast armies of Imps plus the counterspell ability, I would have been a goner.
My Raelag started this map with 7 skill points allocated to Summoning Magic and Light magic+ their perks. With no way to get light magic or summoning magic. Shadya had 4 wasted skill points on Light magic+perk.
Under such conditions it is truly impossible to survive this map. So I opened the cheat console.
I do not know how to use cheat console to lose skills, and I could not use it to add Enlightenment either because Raelag already had 6 skills. However, since I never used Light or Summoning magic (and didn't have the spells anyway), I had to simulate swapping out Light and Summoning for Enlightenment. So I cheated by adding 5 to Spellpower and 5 to Knowledge at the start of Week 3. That is when Raelag is level 20, so would get 6 points added to his stats if I had Expert Enlightenment instead of Expert Light Magic.
The remaining 4 points were added to his knowledge to simulate getting Intelligence as a perk of Enlightenment.
At the end of this mission, when Raelag is Level 26, I will add another 2 to Spellpower and 1 to knowledge. Even if Raelag does not make it to level 26 (and it was a struggle to get that much experience in the past as well - I typically got R to 26 and Shadya to 24), I will assume he maxed out his level cap which he would have had I gotten him Enlightenment instead of Light Magic earlier. So I will use the cheat to bring him to level 26 and Shadya to 24.
Due to lack of attack from Demons, this map is easier in h5.5 than h5. If Magnomagus is ever to solve the pathing/ movement scripts, he will also need to nerf the demons a bit to make them manageable.
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Wheeler Dealer
- Conscript
- Posts: 215
- Joined: 19 Jul 2009
- Location: Dallas, Texas
Re: The Warlock → The Cultists
This is just too difficult on Heroic. Too many reloads and even then, I'm not sure I can win. Should have looked at my own post from 10 years ago before I started.
The underground map is really annoying, it's difficult to see without changing your orientation, so finding even the places you have been is tedious.
Here's my journal.
The Cultists, Hard, Max 26
Took the Shadow Witch
Week 1, Shadya took on the Blood Furies. Raelag was attacked on day one on the way to the first town, one Empowered Meteor Shower and they ran.
I took Thralsin on day 6, Blue sent an army, but he skipped Thralsin and headed for the undefended Salgunsal. Chased him down. Red enters the fray. Well maybe not, they never moved.
Week 2, Blue keeps coming. Raelag has Expert Destructive Magic, Empowered Spells, Warlock's Luck and Emerald Slippers. He takes all my Deep Hydras and Minotaur Guards to absorb any punishment until Raelag can blast away. Blue usually retreats after the first Empowered Meteor Shower.
Shadya has the rest of the troops and clears neutral stacks.
Week 3, Thralsin was lost and recovered.
Week 4, Starting to explore north of the river.
Week 5, Shadya attacked by a strong Blue Army. Down to 3 weak stacks when the other hero ran. She took undefended Talmon in the SW corner.
Raelag was attacked near the north center town. Lost 2 Deep Hydras.
Week 6, day 1, Blue attacked Thralsin, I cobbled together a L1 hero with what creatures I could buy behind castle walls. Won a very close battle.
Took a 5th Blue town.
Week 7, I lost and regained the north central town. Lot of sparring around Thralsin. Finally got a big enough army under Kythra (L19) to stand off the Blue invaders.
Week 8, Hired heroes are holding key towns allowing Raelag and Shadya to explore. Raelag took Sorfail in the NW corner (Blue home)
Week 9, a low-level supporting hero led the defense of Thralsin and got 4 levels and several artifacts. Raelag reached L25. Shadya beat the Dragon Utopia, acquiring Blindness and Town Portal.
Week 10, Raelag visited the Tree to reach L26.
Week 11, Shadya Reached L25.
I had Kythra (l21) and Lethos (L23) who were originally Blue heroes supporting my main heroes.
Week 12, Took the NE Blue town last. Raelag (83 skill points) and Shadya (85 skill points) are fully buffed, Won @4,2,7.
The underground map is really annoying, it's difficult to see without changing your orientation, so finding even the places you have been is tedious.
Here's my journal.
The Cultists, Hard, Max 26
Took the Shadow Witch
Week 1, Shadya took on the Blood Furies. Raelag was attacked on day one on the way to the first town, one Empowered Meteor Shower and they ran.
I took Thralsin on day 6, Blue sent an army, but he skipped Thralsin and headed for the undefended Salgunsal. Chased him down. Red enters the fray. Well maybe not, they never moved.
Week 2, Blue keeps coming. Raelag has Expert Destructive Magic, Empowered Spells, Warlock's Luck and Emerald Slippers. He takes all my Deep Hydras and Minotaur Guards to absorb any punishment until Raelag can blast away. Blue usually retreats after the first Empowered Meteor Shower.
Shadya has the rest of the troops and clears neutral stacks.
Week 3, Thralsin was lost and recovered.
Week 4, Starting to explore north of the river.
Week 5, Shadya attacked by a strong Blue Army. Down to 3 weak stacks when the other hero ran. She took undefended Talmon in the SW corner.
Raelag was attacked near the north center town. Lost 2 Deep Hydras.
Week 6, day 1, Blue attacked Thralsin, I cobbled together a L1 hero with what creatures I could buy behind castle walls. Won a very close battle.
Took a 5th Blue town.
Week 7, I lost and regained the north central town. Lot of sparring around Thralsin. Finally got a big enough army under Kythra (L19) to stand off the Blue invaders.
Week 8, Hired heroes are holding key towns allowing Raelag and Shadya to explore. Raelag took Sorfail in the NW corner (Blue home)
Week 9, a low-level supporting hero led the defense of Thralsin and got 4 levels and several artifacts. Raelag reached L25. Shadya beat the Dragon Utopia, acquiring Blindness and Town Portal.
Week 10, Raelag visited the Tree to reach L26.
Week 11, Shadya Reached L25.
I had Kythra (l21) and Lethos (L23) who were originally Blue heroes supporting my main heroes.
Week 12, Took the NE Blue town last. Raelag (83 skill points) and Shadya (85 skill points) are fully buffed, Won @4,2,7.
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legrandgrand
- Leprechaun
- Posts: 1
- Joined: 15 Dec 2023
Re: The Warlock → The Cultists
Recently decided to replay through HoMMV, and wanted to test out Heroic after having played in Hard and having some better experience on how to play the serie. So here I am, chilling for the most part, and actually hit a wall on this mission, as one does on post v1.30 (currently on v1.60)
My first attempt was absolutly terrible; I had two dead skills on Raelag (Basic Summoning and Basic Offense), as well as Logistics and Destruction, so no Sorcery or Enlightement. I decided to restart everything and have a better setup seeing I was getting obliterated left and right.
Second time around, I started the map with Expert Destruction, Expert Logistic and Expert Sorcery. I had one empty slot, and wasn't sure if I wanted Luck or Enlightement so I was waiting for a "bad" level up to choose between those two. In hindsight, I should have picked Enlightement whenever I was offered the chance, because I was really needing the Extra Knowledge. I was only at 8 knowledge, and even with Arcane Training that was clearly not enough to be sustainable here. Shadya did get Enlightement and had a nice 160 Knowledge, but nowhere near as good spellcasting and no logistic, so she clearly wasn't going to be my main, especially considering the strat I devised.
The strategy I decided to go for was something I haven't seen discussed here, which is the main reason I am making this post. I didn't have Light Magic, no Summoning magic either so I had to rely on Destruction to win my way through, and I think it's something anyone could pull off consistently, considering the standard skill tree. I just went for Armageddon Spam!
Now of course, Armageddon hurts, but you start with one big stack on Minotaur, and I don't think anyone can argue they are the perfect fit to battle heroes. They are slow, get kited by Blood Furies easily and by the time they reach the ennemy you already lost half your stack. They have a lot of HP, which is supported by Raelag's Vitality too. I started the map giving all the Minos to Raelag, and thanks to Logistics, he could reach the first hero in one turn. (Unfortunatly, one tile away from taking town on 111!) This is particularly good here for multiple reasons which I realized a bit later: Enemy Heroes start at level 5, but with enough EXP to reach level 22+, which they reach on their own turn, making the fight a lot more safe for your Minos. I was able to beat the hero with only 28 Minos thanks to the power of Armageddon (would have been 25 if I let them run away, but I figured it would be better to kill them).
From previous attempts, I felt that taking the town#2 on the island was making you get attacked by both sides, so decided against it, and instead decided to rush for the Western towns, not even taking the mines. I still needed to defend the main town with Raelag against the hero that would otherwise take my town, so I opened the path to the teleporter with Raelag, and got the gold mine before going back to get some mana, all that with the Blood Furies. Traded back everything but the minos to Shadya, and went on to defend Main. Thanks to logistics, I figured I could defend the second attacking hero on 116, and get the town on 121 and get the batch of army without getting attacked on that side. Second hero was killed thanks to Armageddon again, using some meat from the tavern's hero to shield them from taking too much damage.
Meanwhile, Shadya headed for the towns. She was met with the southern hero coming at me, and I lost ~half of my army to it, but from there the path to the southern town was free, and I got it on 121, which made me go from 1 to 3 towns by the start of Week 2, and defeated 3 of the 7 Heroes. Which was good, considering I was down to 11 Minotaurs and half of the rest of the army dead on Shadya. I was able to restock Raelag and keep on pushing towards the north-middle town, which managed to lure away Lethos from my Main town. I had no resources to fight him anyway.
There was one of the big Heroes defending the town on 124, and this time I could just take him down the normal way, using Implosion, Meteor Shower and all that. Town only had a fort and the army wouldn't go out, and enemy hero was spamming Raise Dead on Blood Fury, so I was able to take it without losing much forces. I wasn't planning to hold on that castle, just take it to lure away Lethos and all heroes so I could take the time to take the North-East town, which I did on 131. It was not defended as that town's hero decided to take back the middle town, while Lethos was playing Cat&Mouse with Shadya, who thanksfully wasn't getting caught.
Managed to go back and take back the central town during that week, taking down the 5th hero. Not exactly sure how anymore, but he wasn't that big of a deal somehow.
I restocked army on Raelag and started to build a big Deep Hydra stack on him, building as many Hydra dwellings as possible in towns, to kill Lethos using that stack. Shadya received reinforcements from both southern towns and had to defend Main town on 141 from the 6th hero who decided to attack then, and thanks to Castle walls and the ~10 hydras I had at that point I defeated him without much trouble, losing the rest of my army but keeping the power stack of Hydras.
All that was left was taking care of Lethos. I regrouped all my army on Raelag, and took on Lethos using only 26 Deep Hydras and, you guessed it, won thanks to Armageddon. At some point Lethos decided to just spam Raise Dead on Blood Furies, and I was left with 10 Hydras, and thanks to a few powerful spells, managed to take him down, only losing half of my Deep Hydras, on 142.
I haven't finished clearing the map, though at this point it's basically won, but it seems clear to me that the Demons AI is bugged on this patch and won't attack you (they didn't in any of my attempts). All to say that Logistics, Sorcery, and all Destruction Spells is basically all you need to clear this map, as long as you can have some clever uses of Augmented Armageddon, and rush through the map. Logistic is definitly a crucial pick and really shouldn't be overlooked as I have seen many mention. The extra movement points allow for a much better control on the map. It definitly was the hardest I have had so far on Heroic, good luck anyone trying to clear this map!
Note: If you manage to get the Level 5 hero you take down at the start of the map, on pickup it will jump to level 22, and you will be able to pick whatever skills you want on them! That didn't help me much, but I was able to pickup a few more mines with them that a level 1 hero wouldn't have been able to otherwise. I also hired heroes to pickup resources on the ground and get some meat. Don't hesitate to pickup chests for gold, you definitly need it for army buying and also trading for resources, and at that point you aren't getting much levels from those anyway.
My first attempt was absolutly terrible; I had two dead skills on Raelag (Basic Summoning and Basic Offense), as well as Logistics and Destruction, so no Sorcery or Enlightement. I decided to restart everything and have a better setup seeing I was getting obliterated left and right.
Second time around, I started the map with Expert Destruction, Expert Logistic and Expert Sorcery. I had one empty slot, and wasn't sure if I wanted Luck or Enlightement so I was waiting for a "bad" level up to choose between those two. In hindsight, I should have picked Enlightement whenever I was offered the chance, because I was really needing the Extra Knowledge. I was only at 8 knowledge, and even with Arcane Training that was clearly not enough to be sustainable here. Shadya did get Enlightement and had a nice 160 Knowledge, but nowhere near as good spellcasting and no logistic, so she clearly wasn't going to be my main, especially considering the strat I devised.
The strategy I decided to go for was something I haven't seen discussed here, which is the main reason I am making this post. I didn't have Light Magic, no Summoning magic either so I had to rely on Destruction to win my way through, and I think it's something anyone could pull off consistently, considering the standard skill tree. I just went for Armageddon Spam!
Now of course, Armageddon hurts, but you start with one big stack on Minotaur, and I don't think anyone can argue they are the perfect fit to battle heroes. They are slow, get kited by Blood Furies easily and by the time they reach the ennemy you already lost half your stack. They have a lot of HP, which is supported by Raelag's Vitality too. I started the map giving all the Minos to Raelag, and thanks to Logistics, he could reach the first hero in one turn. (Unfortunatly, one tile away from taking town on 111!) This is particularly good here for multiple reasons which I realized a bit later: Enemy Heroes start at level 5, but with enough EXP to reach level 22+, which they reach on their own turn, making the fight a lot more safe for your Minos. I was able to beat the hero with only 28 Minos thanks to the power of Armageddon (would have been 25 if I let them run away, but I figured it would be better to kill them).
From previous attempts, I felt that taking the town#2 on the island was making you get attacked by both sides, so decided against it, and instead decided to rush for the Western towns, not even taking the mines. I still needed to defend the main town with Raelag against the hero that would otherwise take my town, so I opened the path to the teleporter with Raelag, and got the gold mine before going back to get some mana, all that with the Blood Furies. Traded back everything but the minos to Shadya, and went on to defend Main. Thanks to logistics, I figured I could defend the second attacking hero on 116, and get the town on 121 and get the batch of army without getting attacked on that side. Second hero was killed thanks to Armageddon again, using some meat from the tavern's hero to shield them from taking too much damage.
Meanwhile, Shadya headed for the towns. She was met with the southern hero coming at me, and I lost ~half of my army to it, but from there the path to the southern town was free, and I got it on 121, which made me go from 1 to 3 towns by the start of Week 2, and defeated 3 of the 7 Heroes. Which was good, considering I was down to 11 Minotaurs and half of the rest of the army dead on Shadya. I was able to restock Raelag and keep on pushing towards the north-middle town, which managed to lure away Lethos from my Main town. I had no resources to fight him anyway.
There was one of the big Heroes defending the town on 124, and this time I could just take him down the normal way, using Implosion, Meteor Shower and all that. Town only had a fort and the army wouldn't go out, and enemy hero was spamming Raise Dead on Blood Fury, so I was able to take it without losing much forces. I wasn't planning to hold on that castle, just take it to lure away Lethos and all heroes so I could take the time to take the North-East town, which I did on 131. It was not defended as that town's hero decided to take back the middle town, while Lethos was playing Cat&Mouse with Shadya, who thanksfully wasn't getting caught.
Managed to go back and take back the central town during that week, taking down the 5th hero. Not exactly sure how anymore, but he wasn't that big of a deal somehow.
I restocked army on Raelag and started to build a big Deep Hydra stack on him, building as many Hydra dwellings as possible in towns, to kill Lethos using that stack. Shadya received reinforcements from both southern towns and had to defend Main town on 141 from the 6th hero who decided to attack then, and thanks to Castle walls and the ~10 hydras I had at that point I defeated him without much trouble, losing the rest of my army but keeping the power stack of Hydras.
All that was left was taking care of Lethos. I regrouped all my army on Raelag, and took on Lethos using only 26 Deep Hydras and, you guessed it, won thanks to Armageddon. At some point Lethos decided to just spam Raise Dead on Blood Furies, and I was left with 10 Hydras, and thanks to a few powerful spells, managed to take him down, only losing half of my Deep Hydras, on 142.
I haven't finished clearing the map, though at this point it's basically won, but it seems clear to me that the Demons AI is bugged on this patch and won't attack you (they didn't in any of my attempts). All to say that Logistics, Sorcery, and all Destruction Spells is basically all you need to clear this map, as long as you can have some clever uses of Augmented Armageddon, and rush through the map. Logistic is definitly a crucial pick and really shouldn't be overlooked as I have seen many mention. The extra movement points allow for a much better control on the map. It definitly was the hardest I have had so far on Heroic, good luck anyone trying to clear this map!
Note: If you manage to get the Level 5 hero you take down at the start of the map, on pickup it will jump to level 22, and you will be able to pick whatever skills you want on them! That didn't help me much, but I was able to pickup a few more mines with them that a level 1 hero wouldn't have been able to otherwise. I also hired heroes to pickup resources on the ground and get some meat. Don't hesitate to pickup chests for gold, you definitly need it for army buying and also trading for resources, and at that point you aren't getting much levels from those anyway.
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