Aberrlore Will Fall - what is the best way to go about it

[Załupek]

Hi,

let me start off by saying that I do love this game to bits. So far played campaign only and throughout all the missions I managed to beat them on the challenge accepted level (the "Necromancers keep pestering me while I need to beat the boss" did require a few tries).

Brief aside, how the hell is anyone supposed to beat Aberrlore? All of the units I have on my roster seem to absurdly terrible at destroying buildings which, combined with the ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ "I have more HP than the meteorite so you need 2" terror machines + a map with a border to the no build zone open making me want to rip my hair out.

Any advice?

Best

[Pangolin]

I'm still working this out (on second highest difficulty, whatever that's called). I tried the first time to do it without any engineering units (for the achievement) and it didn't seem very difficult until wave 4 (?) around day 50. I was over confidant in the last 10 days leading up to it, was dismantling the city bit by bit using exclusively mounted knights. I was only barely able to stop W4 with half my city wrecked the first time. Save scummed and prepared/fought better, saved most of my city and most troops. But someone here said W5 (on day 56) is three times larger. I tried a few hail mary runs at the final palace but wasn't able to get it down to more than 1/2 health, it's just too hard using mounted knights alone.

I think there are a few strategies you could try, and I'm in the middle of a new attempt (same difficulty, but using siege machines now):
- Never let up on growth. I got lazy-ish around d30/35 and figured I had this in the bag. I should have been using every endless stone and iron site as soon as I cleared them, workshopping everything, and trading stone and iron for gold (instead of just wood) to push out knights as fast as possible.
- There's not a lot of benefit to attacking the city at bottom middle. I lost hundreds of knights slowly clearing it. Would have been better to focus just on the win condition (bottom left)
- Every map is slightly different. This just sucks because I'm sure it means the wave attack locations are also random. In my first game, the initial wave came from the east (so almost no room to build defenses) but this was the smallest wave. Waves 2 and 3 came from the exact same spot, center north; I had very little defensive build room but did have some mountains protecting me and it helped that I could re-use defenses. Wave 4 came mostly from the west, so TONS of build room, but even with a hundred or more builders, it was just barely possible to get a defensive wall up that could handle the attack. I repelled a smaller force from SE using mounted knights and some light static defenses. There is no way I would have survived Waves 3 or 4 if they had come from the east where I had no room to build any defense. So you have some RNG problems
- I think you need to push to win before the day 56 wave, at least on harder difficulties. I was just barely able to take on wave 4. Of course, I wasn't using ballista or catapults or trebs, so, maybe.

So I would say, hope for good luck on where the attacks come from, and never take your foot off economic building. You should be clearing the little forts (I used mounted knights and also archers on lvl 3 towers to outrange defenses -- catapults are even better or trebs) and exploting every endless source and tapping out every mine. Build hundreds of knights. Many hundreds. And if you don't care about the achievement, I'd use 50 or so trebs to take down the towers before charging in. And I'd plan on needing to build another few hundred knights and go at it again as needed.

[Drackuss]

I just finish it at nightmare
I hope this will help

At the start i get ride of all unit exept for the foot knight
So I got a huge boost in pop

I build 4 builder
the rest go in wood

this map give you all the ressource you need to tech tier 3 before the first wave (day 10)
To destroy all the fort I use
Foot knight has shield and healer to maintain them alive + Kiteing
Trebuchet + alot of archer

this strategie able me to destroy all fort whiout any lost or very low (mostly bad click)

For the main castle I destroy section by section very slowly
Using foot knight on hold and healer
alot of trebuche for tower
Balista and arbelletier for counter enemie unit

for the last part I found that crossing the last bridge to atack castle was almost impossible
the enemie hve to much range and fire power

I put foot knight on hold (20 at the time) at the fartes I can on the bridge with balista behind them and keeping sending foot knight
And while they getting all the focus, I take that time to build tier 3 tower on my side and put trebuchet on them (3) they have just enough range to attack the castle

By the day 56 just before the last attack wave (you have to finish before this wave)
I move all my knight to the corner in move command and use this time to advance all my unit on the other side and focus the castle

I will have love to see how many soldier I lost at the end
More than an 1000 i'm sure