Anyone else find the campaign map confusing?

[Truen]

I've quit the game twice because all I do is travel in loops looking for how to get to Drezen and I'm missing something...very frustrating. I feel so stupid.

[Storm]

Through lepers smile then first left to lost chapel then north. You have to complete some of that with your party and clear the path with your army/. Two tabs at the top of the world map to switch blue and red.

[Truen]

Originally posted by MAIN HERO:

Through lepers smile then first left to lost chapel then north. You have to complete some of that with your party and clear the path with your army/. Two tabs at the top of the world map to switch.

Okay, ty. I appreciate the tip! I'm avoiding all online resources to keep form seeing spoilers. Much appreciated.

[Enola Gay]

Originally posted by Truen:

Originally posted by MAIN HERO:

Through lepers smile then first left to lost chapel then north. You have to complete some of that with your party and clear the path with your army/. Two tabs at the top of the world map to switch.

Okay, ty. I appreciate the tip! I'm avoiding all online resources to keep form seeing spoilers. Much appreciated.

You might want to reconsider that. There is a lot of hidden and secret content in this game you will not randomly stumble across.

Some of the mythic paths require very specific actions and dialogue choices to fully unlock. If you know what mystic path you want to be. I highly suggest you briefly skim over what you need to do for said path.

Otherwise you might end up screwing yourself out of the mystic path you wanted and only find out your locked out 50+ hours into the game.

[Truen]

Originally posted by Enola Gay:

Originally posted by Truen:

Okay, ty. I appreciate the tip! I'm avoiding all online resources to keep form seeing spoilers. Much appreciated.

You might want to reconsider that. There is a lot of hidden and secret content in this game you will not randomly stumble across.

Some of the mythic paths require very specific actions and dialogue choices to fully unlock. If you know what mystic path you want to be. I highly suggest you briefly skim over what you need to do for said path.

Otherwise you might end up screwing yourself out of the mystic path you wanted and only find out your locked out 50+ hours into the game.

Thanks for the warning! Man, to be honest that makes me excited about what's to come next. I always just play blindly if I can for the first time. I love the lore and story b/c immersion is so important to me. But, hearing you I can't wait to see what comes next. And, now I found my way to Drezen too. So I'm glad I made this post--progress!

[Gregorovitch]

Some general rules of thumb for a blind playthrough exploration (and I mean general, there will always be exceptions I guess)

* Sometimes your army will be blocked from passing through a map node (e.g. leper's Smile) until your party has cleared the area

* Sometimes your party will be blocked from passing through a map node, e.g. any fort occupied by a demon army, until your army has defeated it.

* Either of these situations will strongly suggest the node in question may on a critical path of some kind and clearing the node will open up new parts of the map. But sometimes it's not on a critical path. The key deciding factor will often be the presence or otherwise of a currently available quest located beyond the blockage in question.

* It is frequently a good idea to take some time to make sure you have fully explored the area behind such a blocking node that you currently have access to before you clear it. This maxes your XP and loot and can give you additional information that may be useful for the other side of the blocking node.

* Defeat every demon army your army can handle easily but leave the others alone for now. As a general rule you want to be at least a point in overall strength score up to take them on. Note that the presence of a demon general, most especially if it's a spell caster, makes a huge difference to the actual strength of a demon army. A demon army that is "officially" the same strength as yours is in fact a lot weaker if it doesn't have a general so it's usually safe to attack it.

* Some critical path battles will require you to go up against an equal strength army complete with scary general in Act 2. In this case you should carefully examine the enemy's general and bring all your available troop stacks together so you can rearrange your main army units for the best chance. The most obvious changes you may have to make are that normally archers are your best damage dealers, however if the enemy has a caster general they can and will obliterate your precious archers in a couple of turns with spells. In this case go for your toughest melee units and pick a spellcaster general yourself to obliterate the opposition units (i.e. spend some mana/energy on a battle like this to minimize losses).

* Treat the displayed strength indicators you see for the demon armies on the map as "soft blockers" that are sign posts to tell you were you should and should not be exploring at any one point in the game. You do not want to be losing soldiers, you want to be building up the strength of your army, so avoid fighting demon armies that are stronger than yours for now unless you can't avoid it for a main plot mission or a side quest that expires at the end of current act (which as you probably already know is clearly shown in the journal), concentrate on exploring where you can kick their arses easily where possible and go back for tougher ones later when your army is stronger.

* If you have not noticed there is meter top left of the army battle screen that shows your losses in the battle thus far vs the capacity of your army field hospital. While this meter is not full your losses will be replaced 100% automatically at the end of the battle. Once it's full you start taking permanent losses to army strength.

The key is that if you look after your army your army will look after you. That and the fact that you can never have enough soldiers.

[seeker1]

It may be confusing, but your "global"/city map of Alush in Act 4 is far more confusing, because you often can't "see" locations on it as they are rotated away from you until you rotate the camera to bring them into alignment.

[morganthebear]

So I think I am in Act 3 (The Queen hasn't come to Drezen yet) and I have explored about 60% of the map, but for some reason I cant send army's or the party into the final parts of the map to the west. I can clearly see forts there that I can attack but none of the roads/paths allow me to progress to them with an army or the party?

Is there triggers in the game plot I have to pass first before the rest of the map opens up?

[Storm]

Originally posted by morganthebear:

So I think I am in Act 3 (The Queen hasn't come to Drezen yet) and I have explored about 60% of the map, but for some reason I cant send army's or the party into the final parts of the map to the west. I can clearly see forts there that I can attack but none of the roads/paths allow me to progress to them with an army or the party?

Is there triggers in the game plot I have to pass first before the rest of the map opens up?

Map opens up later in the game. act 5

[Jaggid Edje]

Originally posted by Gregorovitch:

* If you have not noticed there is meter top left of the army battle screen that shows your losses in the battle thus far vs the capacity of your army field hospital. While this meter is not full your losses will be replaced 100% automatically at the end of the battle. Once it's full you start taking permanent losses to army strength.

I am 50 hours into this game and hadn't noticed that meter. I'm not the OP for this thread, but I appreciate that you took the time for such a thorough response.