The Cultist → The Conquest

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winterfate
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Unread postby winterfate » 15 Jun 2007, 05:25

Hmm... I like to have three.

2: One for each town, that would be two
1: The third to be in the middle.

It's kinda hard to explain, to be honest. But, the basic concept is to use several heroes, the first one being the source hero with all the units, and the last one your superhero that needs the units to form a chain from point A to point B. So, essentially, you can increase your forces in a fraction of the time. Moving your main hero to get reinforcements from your towns takes too long in larger maps, so you hire secondary heroes to do the dirty work. ;)

Let's see...hmm. Ok, lemme illustrate it:

Legend:

A = Hero A (Source)
B = Hero B (Chain Hero)
C = Hero C (Destination)

A...............................B.....................................C

So you have those three heroes...you have hero A meet hero B (move hero B towards hero A to save time. Meanwhile you start moving hero C left so it takes less time. It's a whole lot easier than having Hero C run all the way to Hero A.

That is the essence of the Hero Chain. :)

Hope this helps! :)
Last edited by winterfate on 15 Jun 2007, 05:31, edited 1 time in total.
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The Cultist → The Conquest

Unread postby Ceres » 15 Jun 2007, 05:30

Thanks for the idea! I will try it later. With the chain heroes I can transfer Inferno and Sylvan troops to Agrael in less time.



And besides I think I should drop Mistress Suc and instead invest on Master Hunters (Thanks for the tip Omega_Destroyer!). I will limit my Inferno creatures to Familiar, Horned Demons and Cerebri I think. Then mix them with Pixies/Sprites and Master Hunters.



I just hope they won't go on negative morale ;D
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Unread postby Omega_Destroyer » 15 Jun 2007, 05:32

It wasn't that difficult. Only took me about 10 times.
And the chickens. Those damn chickens.

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Unread postby winterfate » 15 Jun 2007, 05:35

Ceres wrote:I just hope they won't go on negative morale
Leadership...you need Leadership. ;)
And, cross your fingers that they don't start losing turns during a fight with Gilraen...that could lose you the fight if it happens at a bad time (been there, done that :().

Do you have the skill? If so, concentrate on leveling it up. If you don't, then try to get it when you level-up...even -2 morale is better than -3 morale. :)

Try to keep your Master Hunters alive once you get them because they are a pretty strong source of damage (they are the strongest 3rd level unit in the game. :D).
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Unread postby Corribus » 15 Jun 2007, 14:06

Oh crap, I'm sorry, I totally was thinking you were talking about The Cultist map in the Dungeon campaign earlier. My post probably made no sense to you, Ceres!
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Unread postby winterfate » 16 Jun 2007, 00:37

So did I, Corribus...so did I. :)
Omega wrote:It wasn't that difficult. Only took me about 10 times.
:lolu:

We agree. I think I reloaded even more on the Cultist map. :D
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The Cultist → The Conquest

Unread postby Ceres » 18 Jun 2007, 00:07

Guys! I finally beat it! Thanks for all your help!



*me shrugs*



Inferno Campaign seems too difficult for me. I wonder how would the next campaigns would look like. :D
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Unread postby winterfate » 18 Jun 2007, 04:45

;|

Just keep playing...you'll be fine. :)
It does get harder...but you should be a lot more experienced now right? ;)
Ceres wrote:Guys! I finally beat it! Thanks for all your help!
That's what we're here for. :)
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The Cultist → The Conquest

Unread postby Ceres » 18 Jun 2007, 08:35

Yeah, I'm trying the next one. I found it easy, but its taking me too long to finish it. :D This site is really a great help!



OT: Why my picture appear to be broken? :(
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Unread postby winterfate » 19 Jun 2007, 05:01

Your picture...broken?

It looks fine from here.

Good luck with that map, Ceres! ;)
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The Cultist → The Conquest

Unread postby Ceres » 19 Jun 2007, 12:31

It appears to be a broken picture here. :|



Anyways I'm trying the Forums but its a bit huge and I can't find exactly what thread I need to read or post over there. What's your name there? Maybe I can ask you.
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Unread postby winterfate » 19 Jun 2007, 23:42

Well...if you're talking about any forum located on this website (Celestial Heavens)...then my name is still winterfate. :)

I'm only a member of this website and the Ghost of the Past Mod Website, a companion website to Celestial Heavens.

If you mean the official forums (over at ubi.com), then...I don't have a membership there.

As for your photo...what internet browser are you using? (examples: Internet Explorer, Firefox) Perhaps your browser needs additional software so you can see the photo.
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The Cultist → The Conquest

Unread postby Ceres » 19 Jun 2007, 23:52

I'm using Mozilla Firefox.



I tried the Round Table out. And I saw you there. :) And I can't view some of the images there too...
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Unread postby winterfate » 20 Jun 2007, 05:47

This is the Round Table. ;)

The Round Table

From there, you can see the various forums this site has. :D

You may have to update your version of Firefox...that, or change some of the options it has.

I can't tell you which ones exactly because I'm not sure, to be honest.

It'd be better for you to post a thread in the Campfire about this problem to see if anyone knows how to solve it. :)
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Unread postby Gaidal Cain » 20 Jun 2007, 07:29

winterfate wrote:This is the Round Table. ;)
I think Ceres is posting from the main cite, using the site comments. Those show up on the RT forums as well.
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Unread postby winterfate » 20 Jun 2007, 22:39

Oh...:embarrased:

Good point...that had slipped my mind. :)
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The Cultist → The Conquest

Unread postby Agrael_MK » 11 Jul 2007, 12:11

If you install the patch it`s gonna be lot easier,trust me!!!

But that also depends on what level do you play the game!

If you play on heroic it will be harder of course,cause the dudes are gonna attack you more offten!!!

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The Cultist → The Conquest

Unread postby Grail Quest » 12 Jul 2007, 18:54

Why is this map so stupid? Who the heck playtested this?

(1) The typical thing to do would be to take the southern town first. Without this walkthrough, you would never know that it triggers a (broken?) event that makes every week a Sylvan week.

This in itself is OK. Yes, despite people thinking that it gives the Sylvan heroes an advantage, it is actually neutral since you too can get the increased troop count by recruiting a sylvan army.

Further, it appears that maybe because Gilraen was static for a week or so, he subsequently didn't or couldn't pick up stacks (he appeared to have some kind of cash shortage, too) EXCEPT once you are several weeks into the scenario, the stacks start becoming 100+, 200+, even 400+ SPRITES. This means no matter what, you will take significant losses just to walk past them.

I feel this is actually an engine bug because *newly spawned* stacks are 400+. How come? And there is no way a stack like that, and bigger stacks in the weeks to come, will opt to run. Certainly not from a full week of hires from a fully-built up town.



(2) Gilraen casts Frenzy WAY too much. Even on my Unicorns, which are supposed to have Magic Resistance. This means you cannot reliably assemble a superior force against him since he will hit whatever you've got. You cannot reliably defend against it because your turn can't possibly come soon enough. Neither can you move your units to avoid him because there just isn't enough room to move, nor are there alternate targets for the Frenzied stack in a siege.



(3) I camped outside the southern town and effectively boxed Gilraen in, as he didn't want to come out, and I didn't want to go in without insanely overwhelming numbers. So, were we deadlocked? Theoretically yes, until I can ship enough troops, which might be months because he has Frenzy. However, given that Sprites and Blade Masters spawn like crazy every week, I cannot ship troops to Agrael camped outside without either moving Agrael to clear the spawned stacks, or trying to survive the newly spawned stacks.

I could not also Summon Creature because the nearest town was the Inferno one.



Believe it or not, this map would otherwise be straightforward on Hard. Gilraen busts out of the NE with a strong army, but even playing badly in combat like I did (for the very first time, I'm struggling to fight battles better than Quick Combat), your army is nearly on-par. With some running around, you can outmaneuver him since you already outbuild him two Sylvan towns to his one. Only the Frenzy scroll gives him an insane advantage, and don't tell me to secure the scroll first or not take the southern town first because that is too much cheating for me. If I can only win a map because of a walkthrough that is absolutely critical, I might as well just cheat from the get-go. If you cannot play a map without a walkthrough specifying critical events or items you could not possibly know, then the map is broken.

Sheesh... And I switched to playing H5 because I got tired of stupid maps in H3:SOD.



On top of everything else, I ended up with one level where all of the skill/ability picks would have blocked me from getting Urgash's Call, which I was aiming Agrael toward. I used the Console, of course, but I can't remove a skill/ability from it.



At this point, I'm wondering if my current game is still at all salvageable. Maybe if I try to force Gilraen to fight the spawned stacks, but if he ever comes at me, I'm toast, so that "strategy" is really more dumb luck than anything else.

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The Cultist → The Conquest

Unread postby Grail Quest » 12 Jul 2007, 20:34

Well, I thought it through, especially as I did not want to restart because it's taken so long already, although this is my first pass through the map. With a bit of luck I finished off Gilraen.

A lucky absorption of a stack of ~150 Hunters (which I had to reload to shuffle some Sprites to a secondary hero in order to get), plus swapping out the Sprites in the final fight for a stack of 222 Familiars (they were accumulating unused in the Inferno town) to drain Gilraen of his mana so he couldn't cast Frenzy. I checked, and Quick Combat showed if I were 100 archers less, I would have lost in Quick Combat. As it was, Quick Combat won for me but I lost all stacks except maybe 3 score master hunters and close to a score of Ancient Treants.

Total time Day 4, Week 1, Month 3, which includes 2 weeks to walk to the NE town for final reinforcements, and walking all the way back. Sheesh. Gilraen popped out to flag ONE mine, ignoring all the others even if they were undefended. Duh.

I wish it had been more clear to me that defeating the Source of Druid Magic would stop the sylvan creature weeks, but honestly I'm not sure how big a difference that would have made. Once Green penetrated my area past the Phoenixes, I really couldn't afford a side trip. If I had known Gilraen would mostly stay holed up, I would have tried it, but there again, he had the superior force (with Frenzy), so I had no reason to believe he'd stay at home. On the plus side, since the sylvan neutral stacks were big but maybe not big enough, the AI may have calculated they'd probably spawn in single or dual stacks, thus negating the usefulness of Frenzy.

*

Definitely take the 4 Hell Chargers. In the early game, they can be frequently used to make decisive strikes (stack killed or retaliation absorbed without losses). The Pit Fiends are good for their magic, but it is far too limited and they move too slowly against Sylvan creatures. Quest
Edited on Fri, Jul 13 2007, 13:57 by Grail Quest

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The Cultist → The Conquest

Unread postby Grail Quest » 14 Jul 2007, 21:43

Tried this scenario again, and it's still crazy hard. It's only week 3, and Talanar has broken through the Phoenixes in the northwest. I was heading east to avoid them and trying out the sprites vs. elementals strategy. Took the NW town, and Talanar took my southern one then turtled there. I got a full week of hires and charged down to see if I can retake the southern town, but Talanar got a week's worth of hires, too, plus reinforcements from god knows where. It's near the end of Week 4 when I'm camped outside the southern town, but unable to take it. Gilraen is on his way with a smallish force, on par with mine, but somehow he busted through the Green Dragons and is near the Red Border Guard. ARGH!

Theoretically, I should have been toast, and Talanar did move back up, and it cost me my army to smash his. I turtled in the NW, moving here and there but not really committing to going to either the southern or northeastern town. This had the effect of making the AI turtle as well. I noticed that if I committed in any one direction, Green in the further town would start moving out, flagging mines, and leading a sizable force in the direction of my town. Which was odd since either of them had a good chance of crushing me, and certainly if they both squeezed me with two battles or merged forces with one hero, I would have lost Agrael for sure.

Did manage to clear the Source of Druid Magic this time, but 33 Treants isn't easy to clear before getting to the druids themselves.


Edited on Sun, Jul 15 2007, 00:41 by Grail Quest


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