Conquest of the Underworld (H4) Review

The old Heroes games developed by New World Computing. Please specify which game you are referring to in your post.
User avatar
Wheeler Dealer
Conscript
Conscript
Posts: 215
Joined: 19 Jul 2009
Location: Dallas, Texas

Conquest of the Underworld (H4) Review

Unread postby Wheeler Dealer » 20 May 2022, 17:49

Conquest of the Underworld

An H3 campaign converted for H4. Thanks to those that did the work!!! Playing on Champion, hate starting with no gold!

Cerberus Gate (Max 6)

The squires guarding the ore pit and sawmill will join (this will be your primary offense for a while). My Order Lord got 2000 xp when he fled from a company of imps!

There is a quest that gets one of your heroes 60 spell points. I gave them to Tarnum since Cuthbert should be able to generate his own as he matures but that wasn't best for this scenario.

Well, I'm in trouble. The Garrison looks really tough with 43 Venom Spawn along with a large group of efreeti and a host of imps. I decided to hit them in 2 waves, a death army, then retreat and come back with my life army.

Thought I might need those Devils from the Temple of the Damned, but I may have waited too long. There are 4 stacks of 4 on guard and each stack can take out one of my heroes in one shot. To make it worse, they are quicker than my heroes so Tarnum was twice dead before he got a turn. Wish I hadn't given up that 4 leaf clover!

I decided my first plan for the garrison was still too ambitious, so I hired 3 necromancers and 2 priests, sent them all to the Witch's Hut (order) and bought all of them three skills at the seminary. Used this crew along with Tarnum and Cuthbert to launch hit and run attacks until the imps and efreeti were eliminated. Meanwhile I was hiring and using caravans to bring all available creatures to the nearest town. My progress vs. the venom spawn was painfully slow, so at 3,3,4 I attacked with the accumulated death army. Serious casualties but we broke through.

I was too careful, finished the scenario the next day using the survivors of the last battle as my army!

The Boatman (Max L12)

Both heroes started with Boots of Travel! It happened again, the first time I fled from a battle with an Order Lord she got 2000 xp. This happened at least 4 times with both new and advanced Order Lords. Still haven't found any pattern.

Some pretty hard battles for small gain. My biggest problem was the The Temple of the Damned. Gathered up 7 heroes with hundreds of Potions of Immortality and after several hit and run attacks I broke through. Eliminated Orange, Green and Purple at 3,2,4. The Blue army was no problem by 4,4,5.

Truth within Nightmares (Max 18)

So many Learning Stones I couldn't keep up with them. I think there were 24. Maxed out Tarnum and Cuthbert at 2,2,4. Added a Mage and maxed him out, replaced him with a druid and maxed him out. Eventually hired 8 Order Lords to explore and provide resources. I hired 6 more heroes so xp didn't go to waste once Tarnum and Cuthbert reached L18. I eventually had a massive army of undead along with my strong haven army. Four of the 5 other cities were necropolises.

With all these xp so easy I didn't trade the Medal of Honor for 10,000 xp.

I only used my heroes to fight until 1,4,3. Defeated the large neutral army confining me to my starting area at 2,3,1.

My next real test was the large stack of bone dragons guarding the neutral haven town. I passed on it when I first found it since the necropolis towns were so much easier. (Access through the pink portal in the NE corner.) When I came back, there were 52 bone dragons. I had 16 angels, 66 monks and 414 crossbowmen along with Tarnum, Cuthbert and a L16 Archmage (druid). I couldn't win this battle without massive losses. I needed a bigger army and a better plan.

I diverted my two armies to clear the underground while I assembled more troops. I came back 10 days later with 32 angels, 147 monks, 858 crossbowmen, Tarnum, Cuthbert, and 2 (order) Archmages (L18 and L13). All 4 heroes could cast Slow and two could cast Teleport. The plan was to Slow all four stacks and then Teleport the dragons away as required. Meanwhile I buffed up the shooters and cast Martyr on Cuthbert to protect the angels, protective spells on the angels and healing spells on Cuthbert to keep him alive when I sent in the angels. Worked like a charm, flawless victory.

Now it was time to go after Sandro through the Green Border Gate in the SW. That leads to a one way portal and the final battle. Once you pass through the one way portal there is no return (unless you can cast Town Portal or are willing to flee.) Visions told me I would be handily defeated but with smart use of spells I took no casualties. My army was the same one that defeated the bone dragons except for the L13 Archmage (order) who was replaced by my L17 Archmage (druid).

Won at 5,2,5. A couple of oddities: No xp for fleeing but two of my Order Lords immediately got a level when they were attacked, not at the end of the battle. During the final battle with Sandro he tried to pay me to flee to Scythe even though I hadn't seen a town by that name. After winning, I reloaded and let him flee, then used nwcPrometheus and there it was in the SW corner of the dungeon, trouble was I could see any way in or out.

Twisted Tunnels (Max 20)

Instant army, 189 harpies joined for the greater glory at 1,2,2! That's all the army my 2 heroes ever had. There was only one battle I couldn't handle with just my 2 heroes, that was 300 harpies in the NW corner.

My thief was attacked, fled got 2,420 xp and 2 levels. The only other xp available were from battles, chests and three asylum battle academies.

My two heroes only reached L19, about 12,500 short of the L20 Max. I did mistakenly give 4,500 xp from chests to my first Order Lord. I reloaded every time an ambush was sprung on something other than my 2 main heroes so I don't think there was any way to get to L20, short of just sitting on my thumb for a month or so, so the enemies could grow.

I won at 1,3,7.

Jorm's Ambush (max 24)

My Order Lord fled earning 2,662 xp.

After failing to reach the maximum level on the last scenario, I decided to attempt to use all chests on my primary heroes and have them fight all the battles. It worked but it was unnecessary. There are no learning stones or dream teachers but there is one battle academy, a Vereran's Guild and two trees of knowledge. My heroes maxed out at 2,4,1 with one tree undiscovered (behind the blue border guard). In addition there was a battle with 165 monks yet to be fought behind the red border guard.

Because I was using chests for supporting my primary heroes there was little profit in hiring Order Lords. I eliminated teal at 1,4,7 and purple at 2,1,4. My only army at that point was a couple of angels. There were three serious battles yet to be fought.

There were scores of efreeti guarding the Veteran's Guild and dozens of devils guarding the Cart of Ore and the Library. Also 165 monks guarded the Ankh of Life. The latter was made easy when both my heroes reached Expert Order Magic and learned Forgetfullness before they had to fight that battle.

The other two battles required a substantial army and I took moderate casualties.

I won at 2,4,2.

Old Wounds (L28)

Started with 7 artifacts and was given a L20 General to boot!

Huge battle to get to Providence (SW corner) - 60 Dark Champions, 300 skeletons and 150 zombies. It was fully built with a Holy Avatar.

By 3,1,7 I had mostly maxed out Tarnum and Cuthbert and was dominating the map with 3 armies capable of defeating any enemy armies. There were some neutrals that would have still been challenging but I was tired of this map and finished it without completely exploring it. I found 6 Trees of Knowledge so don't worry about your main heroes reaching L28. When I took the Helm my income was over 37,000 gold per day. I never went underground.

The Queen's Command (max32)

Started with Tarnum, Cuthbert and Allison, all L28. Only Tarnum goes forward so I recommend starting with Tarnum alone and the other two together.

There weren't enough xp on the map to get a level for Tarnum. He got L29 from a ToK. There wasn't a battle that Tarnum couldn't win alone, although the battle with Jorum got pretty dicey. I hired Order Lords to boost my income but even with the Learning Stone they took 2 weeks to break even so don't hire any after week 2.

Too easy, Drill Seargent! I won at 1,4,2

Never Deal with a Demon

I was given a general and an archmage, both L30. Rescued Mensor at 1,1,5 near the center, above ground, behind a Yellow Border Guard. He was a well developed L30 Pyromancer (62 skill steps vs. 37 and 32 for the two extra starting heroes, Tarnum had 51). I hired 8 Order Lords along the way.

Only Tarnum was able to gain a level aside from the one ToK. All ended up at L31. I teamed up Norvan and Trynn while sending Tarnum and Mensor out on their on. Tarnum was a powerful warrior with some useful spells and Mensor was a powerful Pyromancer with good fighting skills. Didn't use any creatures in battle until the finale. Probably didn't need them then either but I had worked so long to build an army.

Deezelisk was outside his castle when I attacked him, I actually would have preferred that he was in his castle, that lets me have more time to organize my attack, casting spells before the actual engagement.

Won 2,2,7

Return to “Heroes I-IV”

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: Google [Bot] and 33 guests