Might & Magic: Heroes VII - Necropolis - Thoughts and Intentions

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Might & Magic: Heroes VII - Necropolis - Thoughts and Intentions

Unread postby {CH}ArticleBot » 10 Dec 2015, 17:58

You start as Adar-Malik, on a mission to recover Vein's skull from those pesky wizards. The target is in the northwestern corner of the map, and you're in the opposite end, but since you aren't likely to succeed by simply walking in anyway, let's start by building your town and exploring your territory.

 

General tips: You should build town portal in your town. Then, when Adar-Malik needs reinforcements, you can just magic your way home to get them. Also, since you're really poor in the early stage of this map, try to build some wealth generators such as the town hall and resource silo. Spells are also important. I find the «fire wall» spell particularly useful, so level up your skills to boost that. Get the mage guilds up and running. You can defeat lots of neutrals here just by hammering away with fire spells. You can also call in reinforcements (without using a caravan) with the «instant reinforcements» adventure spell, that's really useful; you can get that spell at the shrine just east of the stables. As for other skills, I would focus on necromancy as it strenghens you while it weakens your opponents. I would also focus primarily on core creatures and not bother building elite dwellings until after you have control of mines. Last bit of general advice: go for gold early on, not experience.

 

As you begin exploring, you will soon notice that you're on an arid rock with no mines and limited resources, and a Simurgh standing in the way of further exploration. There's no other way: you have to fight this thing. I'd use your hero's spells for all they're worth.

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When the bird has been defeated, head onwards and now you have a choice as to whether you go south across a bridge, into yellow player's extended territory, or continue west. If you go south, there is a fort way back to the east (almost exactly due south of your town), but if you go for this, lots of enemy heroes will come for you and take it back. I counted a full dozen heroes chasing. Going west, however, I did not experience this. So instead of taking the southern territory immediately, I recommend going west and fighting neutrals. Yellow player has a Haven town called Ziyad directly west of your starting town. This should be high on your list of priorities, but the enemy is strong so you may need to head back to your town to gather creatures. If you do manage to take it, beware: once you take a town, those spells you use to call reinforcements or withdraw back to your starting town will no longer work; the spells are applied to your nearest town. You can also move north; there is an Observatory which gives you a view of some of the area. I did eventually encounter a strong hero, so I retreated with the town portal spell to get creatures from the town. After getting some creatures, I went back out there and this time I crossed the bridge into the southern area. Fight the dragon, move on south and clear out this lush oasis. Moving eastwards, you will eventually find a fort, which you should take and rebuild to gain control of the mines in the area. Go and flag them. Once you own these, you control a Sawmill, a Gold Mine and an Ore Pit – all the three staple resources. You can now really start consolidating your position; use resources to buy as many creatures as possible.

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ImageIf you have not yet taken the town of Ziyad, chances are the enemy will come for you. They really don't like that you control that fort and they want it back. Here are some good tips if you can't simply beat all of them: you can hide in the fort, you can summon instant reinforcements or you can run away with town portal if you want to. I managed to beat three big armies before having to run away from the fourth and concede the fort. Then I would just come back and reclaim it later. A more lasting solution, though, is to take the town to the west, as that seems to put a dent in their recruiting capabilities.

The dozens of heroes roaming all around is one of the real problems with this map. They will retake the forts if you leave them unguarded, and the same applies to towns. What to do? Well, you can hire heroes yourself. Some may be "stolen" from the enemy; if they're recruited by you, they won't be available to anyone else. Cool, right? The other thing is that sooner or later the enemies will start to run out of troops, whereas you will gain more and more through your necromancy skill. That's a skill you should really focus on. Eventually, you will have several heroes with armies guarding your towns, and the enemy heroes will start to run around with small or no armies at all, unable to take anything back.

 

North of your first town (go west first, then north, then east), you will find another fort (Muhiit Qsar). I found it protected by small armies only, and there are several mines around, so you should go for it to gain control of the area. Just north of the fort is an Academy town (Al-Amal). Take it! It's actually a really nice port town, and you can send out some ships! You can also start using Academy armies (disciples and rakshasas really kick butt), or you can take those recruits to your Necro town and turn them into undead units. 

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Southwest of this new town (down by the water's edge) there is an obelisk. Stop by, but make sure the town isn't taken by the roaming enemy heroes; there are a lot of them. While down by the water, head south and visit the Altar of Arkath too, so the seal is possible to open later. The seal is to the northwest of Al-Amal and leads to a Dragon Utopia.

 

Once you are strong enough to take and hold enemy towns, you should be able to hold all three eastern towns, thus controlling the eastern part of the map. You should soon be ready to move westward, but first, let's explore the possibilities on the water: When you manage to procure a ship, head north along the eastern edge of the map to find an obelisk. Further northeast there is a whirlpool, taking you to one of the inland lakes. Don't go too far north, though, that's enemy territory, and if you lose a hero there, they'll take your boat and have a shortcut down to your lands. If you bring a proper army, you may have more luck and the thing is: there's a fort up there, and the Altar of Ylath just northwest of that. The corresponding seal is to the south of your Haven town and beyond it lie some nice artefacts and some Shantiri ruins, and an obelisk.

 

Anyway, now that you control the east, let's go west. West of your Academy town (you have to go around the mountains) is a Gold Mine. That's one thing you really need: more gold, so go for it. There's a magic shrine nearby too. After that, keep heading west past the Haunted Ruins until you reach a garrison. You know what to do with it. Past the garrison are a pair of sphinx-like statues (taken straight outta «The neverending story»), and a cutscene gives you a hint that you can't go south until they're dealt with. Westwards it is, then. First, though, let me do you a big favour. Since you're here. Take a look at the picture below. See where my hero is standing, just north of those sphinxes and the stables? That's where you can find the Tear of Asha. Sod the obelisks and tell me I'm awesome.

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Now move west. What have we here? Another town? Mine now. It's called Thaqib and it's another Academy town. You can really get some Academy armies up and running now. If you go north from Thaqib, you will approach your final destination; I wanted to explore the whole map first. Go south from Thaqib if you want to find an obelisk, and then go northeast from the town to find another one.

Heading east from Thaqib and then north as you reach the Blackfang Hideout, there's yet another town (Nudhar). It's problematic keeping hold of all these towns, that's why you should hire more heroes to guard them against enemy heroes with small armies. As they lose more towns, the enemies should have their recruiting capabilities hindered too. Many heroes will wander around with small armies (or none at all). With a total of three Academy towns at your disposal, gold and creatures are now available in vast numbers while the enemy is severely weakened.

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At this point I started walking around with my main hero and an army of 1000+ skeletons, nothing else. The necromancy skill makes sure the army doesn't get depleted. My other heroes had Haven or Academy units, or elementals picked up from the confluxes.

 

To the east of Nudhar is a Bloodforge. Move north from the town to find a level-up shrine. Nice for your main hero. Go east from there to find another obelisk. Keep heading east and then north to find a fort. This is the same area you can access from the sea but should not take without a big army. At this point, however, it is easily controlled, and with that, you own everything except the final city.

 

There's still the matter of passing those guardian statues to the area in the south, however. Guess what, though: you're not supposed to. Insetad, attack the final city, Al-Jamasht.

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Well, crap. Things are going to hell in a handbasket, aren't they. Don't worry, even though you are now the hunted traitor and your once-adored hierophant seems to have lost it completely, this is a story to be told, remember? This is what's supposed to happen. To make a point.

After the cutscene, run south. The stacks of grim reapers will not chase you. Go through the pass guarded by the statues. Keep heading south and you will complete the map.
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Re: Might & Magic: Heroes VII - Necropolis - Thoughts and Intentions

Unread postby Alfalken » 16 Dec 2015, 18:10

Interesting. I'm stumped at this map, since they keep sending their heroes over and over to retake my towns and forts as you described. I managed to beat the first three heroes with large armies, but then comes a level 30 hero (when my main hero is only at 18) with a huge army and some overpowered skills and spells (ugh, Storm Lord --;) and she caught me at the worst possible moment.. I'll try to battle her again and hope she plays nicer with her spells and abilities, but otherwise I might have to restart and head straight west as you described.
If you do manage to take it, beware: once you take a town, those spells you use to call reinforcements or withdraw back to your starting town will no longer work; the spells are applied to your nearest town.
Actually, Town Portal should still work, but only if you didn't build Town Portal in the Human Town. It always takes you to the nearest town with Town Portal built, I believe.

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Re: Might & Magic: Heroes VII - Necropolis - Thoughts and Intentions

Unread postby Kalah » 16 Dec 2015, 18:16

Indeed, I had a lot of back and forth too; once you take that southern fort, the enemies go completely ape. Most of them, you can beat, but some you can't and you have to run instead. The main problem with that for me was that given the lack of resources, I could never really build a big army, so it took ages to get anywhere.
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Re: Might & Magic: Heroes VII - Necropolis - Thoughts and Intentions

Unread postby Alfalken » 17 Dec 2015, 11:00

By the way, with this many heroes the enemies are hiring, I think you're bound to see some oddities or two. I saw two Miryms once, one level 2 and one level 20. And amusingly, they recruited Lasir too. Especially amusing considering that this is a story being told.

Anastasya: "Now that you mentioned it, the elf guarding the town of Ziyad looks familiar..."
Lasir: ;|

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Re: Might & Magic: Heroes VII - Necropolis - Thoughts and Intentions

Unread postby Wheeler Dealer » 06 Dec 2018, 00:52

(Heroic) In my 4th week I fought the decisive battle of this scenario. I had taken and defended Ziyad when Johari attacked from the south. I had a decent army, the threat level was "Low". Trouble was, Johari was Level 30 (I was maybe 18) and he had Magic 44 and lots of great artifacts. He cast Chain Lightning every turn and the first hit was almost 1600! I must have fought this battle 6 times before I got a useful result.

1) Finished with no creatures on the battlefield, figured I would survive due to units raised but no, game over!

2) Finished with 3 Liches, ugh. My fire spells could take out his army on the 3rd round but I didn't have much left.

Finally I split out a single skeleton to soak up part of the first Chain Lightning, then I charged with my melee units instead of sitting back so the second Chain Lightening would hit some of his troops. My hero could cast a second spell as long as the first was a prime spell, so the first two rounds I cast Summon Elementals (another way to soak up Chain Lightning) followed by a fire spell. After a few attempts I was able to eliminate all his troops in 2 rounds and was left with 46 Hoplites, 73 Skeletons, 69 Banshees and 20 Liches.

Still a ways to go but nothing else that difficult.

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Re: Might & Magic: Heroes VII - Necropolis - Thoughts and Intentions

Unread postby Lateralus » 10 Feb 2021, 17:06

A cheap little trick that helped me with this one was sending low level heroes to sacrifice themselves versus the level 30 enemy hero early on. The enemy hero will ALWAYS use chain lighting no matter what. I would send a level 1 with two stacks of one, one stack would die to her ballista, and the other one would get hit by the first chain lightning, then the others bounces would hit everything else.

I did this about 5-6 times, and she pretty much killed her own army except for the gargoyles (immune). She had 200 of them, but at least now she would not attack my main hero because now she was trivial but could win easily spamming chain lighting. I build my skelly army overtime then I fought her, it required Clarity, teleport, and inner fire. I put my army of skellies next to the gargoyles via teleport, then because of clarity was able to cast inner fire right after, that made my skellies stronger and faster than the gargoyles, and bam, one hit KO.

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Re: Might & Magic: Heroes VII - Necropolis - Thoughts and Intentions

Unread postby Lateralus » 10 Feb 2021, 17:27

The level 30 enemy hero early on gave me a lot of issues. But I figured out a way to defeat them with this little trick:

Send low level heroes, with two 1 stack units. One stack will die to her pyramid (it has high initiative) and the other will get hit by the chain lightning. This will bounce off and hit her own army.

I did this about 5-6 times. She pretty much killed her own army and she had 200 gargoyles left so still a rough match since she can spam chain lightning. The nice thing is she would ignore my main hero because of the Trivial match up even though she could easily win.

I built up my skellie army, had about 800. I faced her, casted teleport on skellies and also inner fire (because of clarity). Skellies were able to one shot the gargoyles.

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Re: Might & Magic: Heroes VII - Necropolis - Thoughts and Intentions

Unread postby Brainiac » 15 Sep 2021, 15:44

I used a different trick to beat Johari. I fought her with just several dozen Gargoyles I had gathered from here and there. It was my hero damage against her damage. I was fortunate she didn't have a sizeable army.

I used this same technique is subsequent Necropolis maps.

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Re: Might & Magic: Heroes VII - Necropolis - Thoughts and Intentions

Unread postby brainiac2 » 25 Dec 2023, 16:53

I was able to whittle down Jotari's army with the 1 Skelly army technique described by others and fought her with just Skeletons/Ghosts/Gargoyles. She still wiped out my Ghosts by the time I got a victory. This was on Normal. On Hard I just kept falling behind no matter how many lesser heroes I killed by popping out of the Shelter near the crossroads. I'm assuming that's what I was expected to do since the Shelter is so strategically located. On Normal I was eventually able to make progress with this technique.

Don't think I could beat this map without 4x4 Inner Fire. Went the Defensive tree to get Defend/Premptive Strike. That was also handy.

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Re: Might & Magic: Heroes VII - Necropolis - Thoughts and Intentions

Unread postby cjleeagain » 08 Feb 2024, 03:06

This is a very irritating mission.

You are attacked dozens (no exaggeration) of times. Maybe 50 times. I also have posts from around 2016 about the poor structuring and design of this mission.
All the enemy is ultra aggressive, but completely incapable of processing relative strengths.

The first three to five attacks are quite dangerous. Gloria, Johari, Theodorus, etc. Some have substantial spellcasting abilities and can whack you for 4k damage in chain lightning. Yes, 3960 air damage on my first creature, just under 2k on the second creature, etc.! If you are unlucky, you get two attacks in a row and then you're finished.

But once you survive and take the fight to the enemy, they're goners. The AI is poor, so they will keep sending heroes at you without combining their armies. I got attacked a score of times by clearly inferior enemy armies.
It's frustrating to end a turn, and get attacked SIX times in a row from 3 opponents, all of which have tiny armies.

Even if all six armies were combined, they would still be weaker than my army which already had around 350 skeletons, 250 banshees, Simurghs and other creatures at that point. So why does the enemy not beat a wise retreat instead of constantly charging me mindlessly? You don't need top level programming to analyze this troop value here. My troops outnumber all 6 armies together, and my hero already has all the artifacts from previous victories. So even a crude calculation says not to fight.

This AI does not seem to know how to defend towns.
In H2 and H3, the AI often holed up in a town if I was stronger. It is hard for a Necromancer to defeat the Wizard/ Academy enemy in a fortified town, because then you have to resort to spells and the Academy heroes are pretty tough vs necromancers. There are not many flying or ranged undead creatures, and the H7 Gargoyle is totally spell-immune, so they can put up a stiff town defence in theory.

In practice? This mission showed the stupidity of Ubisoft programming. I took 4 towns without a fight. While I was attacked nonstop while walking around.
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Re: Might & Magic: Heroes VII - Necropolis - Thoughts and Intentions

Unread postby fararea » Today, 02:15

Some online games require players Spotle to take on leadership roles in order to succeed. This can help improve their leadership skills in real life.


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