There and back again

[Prometheus]

So I'm going against this massive unbeatable army on above mentioned map. I have like 13-14 fully upgraded units & heroes and even with the dragon you can get on this map it's a pain. I skipped 2 "optional" swamp maps because the swamp just sucks. Do I have to play these? Or how else can one beat this map?

[Dorian Gray]

On my 2nd play-through and you caught me just when I am doing 'There and back again' again.

I have a lot more units when I do it. Probably twice the units you have.

My supply limit is at 35 ( 6 of those from main hero ).

Could this be your problem?

[GeneralGonzo]

Use summons.....Mana you get by using your hero Dolos correctly and (if you have it) the staff, which gives +2 mana by killing a unit.

[primetide_dev]

The map is hard, but you can move your army north against the lizards, then face the empire afterwards. Also charming spiders can be helpful. This one of the ones you want to have the enemy move towards you and be in an inferior position.

[Sekai]

13-14 seems extremely low number of units for that point..the optional swamp maps mostly just get you a bunch of extra liquid mana for upgrades and to "charge" Krell's staff, which I'm not sure what that does, it started as a usable artifact with +50% dmg to undead then disappeared from my inventory after being "charged".

Also every time I fight a large army I have the Black Bard get as close as possible to curse them (+50% dmg taken), that makes them much easier to kill. AE Mark of Death (for live units) or turn undead for undead also work to break up armies and let you kill them more easily if that's not enough.

[GeneralGonzo]

You see, that´s what I like in this game - not only one viable strategy is possible, but alot of different approaches, depending on YOUR strategy and units :-)

[Dorian Gray]

For this map, this is what has worked for me.

You have a starting castle in one of the deployment zones. This will be the primary target for the enemy forces, especially the lizards.

Leave a couple units there to defend. I use an archer, thane and siege troll. siege troll will practically kill one lizard skirmisher a turn. equip the siege troll with the dragon scale armor. that will make him damn near unkillable, while he lays waste to advancing lizards. put archer in the castle and have them killing off the attacking swamp drakes.

Just east of the castle, there is a ridge / woodline. It is close to the dragon keep, as well as a river crossing. The imperials will come across that river crossing. I use the woodline as my main defensive line. As the imperials cross the river, they will mostly ignore the castle and turn to attack you in the woodline.

Grab the dragon ASAP. I would be careful with him until you have a chance to kill off most of the advancing archers / skirmishers.

You have about 3-4 turns to get set up and deployed in the woodline. I have some nice killing zones in place before imperials arrive, as well as siege trolls laying waste to that river crossing.
(if set up correctly, is like shooting fish in a barrel, while enemy madly hurls themselves into your line.)

Just south of all of this, is a swampy area full of spiders. I spend 1st couple of turns farming mana ( from killing spiders ). If you are quick, you can get this done just in time to be in place before imperials arrive.

Keep the trickster close to the lizards. You cannot effectively farm the undead for mana and those lizard skirmishers, with their very high squad size, are the perfect tasty mana conversion targets (provided you do not kill them outright)

If enemy dragon rider becomes too much of a problem, petrify him until you have taken out the rest of his supporting attacking units.

And finally, the first wave of attackers will most likely be the heavy cav. i have found my wind riders (mounted skirmishers) pretty effective in dealing with them, provided you keep them out of range. keep your units in the woods, castle until you have at least neutralized their heavy cav.

----

In general, I really enjoyed the 1st 10 turns of this scenario. For me, the remaining 20 turns were somewhat tedious slogging through the swamp clearing rest of map. It probably would have helped if I had enough supply left to have gotten another lizard. At this point, I was really over the supply limit and had i gotten rid of any units, I would have actually lost their slot.

[Monsieur Blutbad]

I was struggling really hard with this map as well. I managed to beat it by putting all my units (31/30 supply) into the middle deployment zone (none at the top and none at the bottom). At start I sent enough units north to beat the small lizard army (incl. 2 dragons) approaching from that direction and pulled them back to the middle for the big fight. I also sent a Horseman to the dragon pit to get the powerful ally at turn 4. The rest of the units just waiting around the castle for the big fight. I found it much more doable than actively going for the fight myself. Fortified units in the front, 5 archers behind them and 2 Siege Trolls behind. It was still not easy, but I did not lose a single core army unit. And after the big fight it gets much easier and you can either roam the map for its treasures (the dragon is really good for this) or you go for the mission goal and get it over with. I also got every available merch unit at the start, mainly as cannon fodder.

[Prometheus]

I'm at 30 supply and not doing too badly overall, every other mission was easy compared to that one. I read some of your advice and will probably try again with the dragon and some mercs.

But that map is a lot of trial and error and I find that super frustrating in games. Frankly, the difficulty spike compared to previous missions is just utterly ridiculous. If the rest of the game (50% I suppose is left) is similarly designed, I have no desire to go on. I'm getting very frustrated with FG2 and we're still waiting on Patch 2

[GeneralGonzo]

Originally posted by Prometheus:

I'm at 30 supply and not doing too badly overall, every other mission was easy compared to that one. I read some of your advice and will probably try again with the dragon and some mercs.

But that map is a lot of trial and error and I find that super frustrating in games. Frankly, the difficulty spike compared to previous missions is just utterly ridiculous. If the rest of the game (50% I suppose is left) is similarly designed, I have no desire to go on. I'm getting very frustrated with FG2 and we're still waiting on Patch 2

I agree. Out of nothing the difficulty spike rises into endlessness. I assume to face a strong imperial army plus all the annoying lizards is a bit much, isn´t it DEVS ??

[Prometheus]

it's just very questionable design honestly. If I need to replay the same map 3 times before figuring out that the lizards can be killed in the north to make things easier and then 2 more times to figure out there is a dragon south and then 3 more times to figure out how to position my army then it's just not fun.

Trial & Error is NEVER EVER fun in games. Ever.

[sipelgapesa1]

Originally posted by Prometheus:

it's just very questionable design honestly. If I need to replay the same map 3 times before figuring out that the lizards can be killed in the north to make things easier and then 2 more times to figure out there is a dragon south and then 3 more times to figure out how to position my army then it's just not fun.

Trial & Error is NEVER EVER fun in games. Ever.

Im really sorry but it is how this genre has worked from beginning. You learn , you adjust your strategy. If needed, replay map.

I can give to you next hint. Ulnar with 595 hp(1 strong trait from blood oaks) + defensive items in front row. Dragon armor (one with 30% magic resist) ,dragon helm and 30 hp regen - all quaranted drops during game.
Later i did think charge immune would work better insead of hp regen and switch to hp regen after enemy horses were dead.
He was tanking like half enemy attacks. I didnt never need to pull him back to rest and he didnt never fall below 200 hp. His weapon damage with frenzy stacks was around 170 at end.
No manapotions to get extra summons early out, no dragon as it was my first try and i didnt know i can recruit one. I think i lost only 1 summon what i needed offer to get fast rid of taurus catapult.
(tho i needed to reload and replay early turns few times.)

Main hero can do similar tanking but he has 100 hp less.

In short what i want to say with my example. You can do this map with brute force if you want but you need to know game mechanic and units streghts/weakneses.

[как бросить доту]

i hoarded mana and health potions till end of the game, i guess this was really the only place to use them

[Dorian Gray]

Originally posted by горизонтальный убийца:

i hoarded mana and health potions till end of the game, i guess this was really the only place to use them

On my 3rd play through, I had a different set of item drops and different unit roster than previously. I found I had to use a lot of health potions as well, as I was lacking in some front line units to relieve my critically wounded tanks.

I agree that this could be a very good place to use them.

Also noted, the AI acted completely different this time than the 1st or 2nd play through.... which I found refreshing and unexpected.

[Hilde Die Wilde]

A different strategy works for me:

I send Ravencloak (jump) plus a small army to the regen shrine asap, 2 wolfmothers + 1 troll charger towards spiders and dragon and the main army towards the river east (nothing needed in the castle)

First 3 turns are decisive...

3 to 4 turns into the game: River crossing is blocked by shield maidens, winged maidens, 3 thunderers archers, 2 thanes w auras, restoration book and tireless archer, hurlers behind them. air cover by 2 pegasi. dragon is hired for 500 gold from the spider ruin. and regen shrine is mine. This and the dragon breath aoe takes care of the entire empire army in 5 or 6 turns.Use the extractor on the dragon and it harvests mana even.

You need speed buffs and forced march to block the river in time.

Ravencloak on the regen shrine attracts several lizards who however cant damage him there (fort tool+ shrine),,,,

I also use devourers to harvest the coastline.
W this setup I can farm the complete map on challenging with still several turns of wealth left.

[Mulfar]

In my experience you do get stronger by doing all the missions in the sunken lands. It opens up into 3 different ones at one point and you can do them all one after the other. I got some major purple legendary items upgrades and a lot of liquid mana from doing all of them. Since your army appears to be quite small (I was at 30+ supplies myself). I think you would benefit from doing the sunken land missions and buyng some lizardman. The devourer and spell caster version are pretty strong for 1 army population if liquid mana is not an issue.

Anyway, about the map there and back again. I found it really hard myself so don't worry if you get beat down on your first try. There is really no indication during the scenario's starting dialog to help you know:

Where the enemies are coming from (North, East or South?) and what their composition is (Big difference fighting pure magic lizarmand army compared to the empire mixed forces), Why and how should you split your armies into the 3 different spawning locations (Top, Mid, or Bottom?), Somehow you have no map reconaissance whatsoever and cannot possibly know about the shrine locations and the ammount of spiders and vast swamp lands south plus the dragon NPC lair that can join you mid fight.

What i'm sayng is that you can easily make the mission way harder on yourself the first few times around because you don't know what's going on. I played it on the second to hardest difficulty and had to restart 3 times before I could finished it with no losses and clearing 95% of the map in time.

My final strategy was to drop everything in the middle and use magic resistant troops to fight the north lizardman horde and the rest of my army to hold off the empire near the river. I used a mana and health potion as well. You get a lotta those during the campaing and I figured I should use 1-2 on this very hard mission. The dragon NPC was used to bomb the empire's artillerie pieces. Hope that was usefull.