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Then make only the winged orcs. They can fly over everything which allows you to use hit and run tactics on lightly defended targets. Once you can build the smite tank you should be in position to level the place if the other two AI have gone at it with each other.
The only advice I can give is to keep most of your underground cities just making money. The only things you should build in them are structures that boost happiness. Also, research Domain of Earth ASAP and cast it on all your underground cities...dwarves are merely neutral towards underground terrain, and with that spell you'll make them love it. They'll be ecstatically happy for just a little bit of mana per turn. Meanwhile, turn the most productive one into a pure unit factory and have it churn out an endless stream of units.
There's also a bit of a bonus objective on this map that can be worth doing: If you tunnel to the NE you'll eventually cross a small underground river and reach a cave leading downwards. You'll end up in a small underground area that has some powerful enemies (including dragons), but also an extremely good ruined city. If you can get a settler there, it has the potential to give your economy a massive boost.
In terms of research and unit production: You probably won't have the time and economy to fully build up your Dreadnought stuff. Juggernauts are awesome, but you'll struggle to put more than a handful of them on the field by the time your opponents throw around stacks of extremely nasty T4s. However, Dreadnoughts get musketeers very early, and it's extremely worthwhile to spam those, along with cavalry units boosted by the Dreadnought's Side Arms skill. Musketeers plus maybe a cannon or two (remember to keep an engineer at hand for each cannon to keep it shooting once per turn) will render your cities pretty much immune to invasion. Pistol-armed cavalry makes for excellent all-round troops capable of exploiting flank positions perfectly. For offensive operations, you should rely heavily on your heroes. Reskar in particular is the last word in siege combat: If you've built up his Druidry far enough, he can cast both Vengeful Vines and Beast Horde in every city assault. No more walls, plus a huge supply of disposable fodder troops that'll pull the defenders out of position so your actual heavy hitters can get some good shots in. Nomlik might also have Divine Justicars if you've been using him a lot in earlier missions, and that's hilariously powerful all by itself. Just give him a stack of cavalry and send them in on a suicide charge...they'll all be back by the time the smoke clears.
Now for target selection: I suggest going east first, looking for Werlac. There's usually no need to take over his throne city (which is tucked away into a corner somewhere). Look for the leader unit himself. If you defeat that guy even once, rather than heading back to his throne he'll eventually ragequit and leave the map. One problem dealt with. Next up is Leana, who should in the northern part of the map. You do not want to give her the chance to build up, otherwise you'll be buried in wave after wave of T4s (or, on easy settings, find her turtled up behind a wall of T4s, which isn't much easier to deal with because there's a time limit on this map...). After those two are gone, the rest should be easy enough.
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=249563089
It starts off by introducing you to a fabulous underworld and the intro tells you that you are there to hide and build up. The start of the mission does the same thing... guiding you away from entering the surface world. Then it springs a 20 turn to finish timer on you and ruins the whole experience of the campaign and the map introducing dwarves and the torchbearer order.
The amount of effort put into the map is all ruined by some fickle deadline. I had taken my time guarding the entrance with 3 armies, ensuring there was no other way down while exploring the vast undercaverns with heroes and tunnelers finding first the archons now blighted soulless beings then spectacular sanctuaries of magical creatures, eventually even finding the ancient dwarf city now ruins guarded by a great dragon. I emerged to the surface with the ai's fighting over the land. It was going to be glorious.... then suddenly a new popup says finish in X turns and ruins it. Taking a tremendous 10 turns to slog into two cities only to be bombarded with otherworldly magic and armies to realise the plight of not having any hope of finishing in the short deadline I had to restart.
Upon restarting I took my 4 heroes, ate the berries, rushed through the cavern, rushed through the berries on the other side, rushed to the West, killed one AI, Rushed North West, killed another AI meanwhile the 3rd captured 4 of my cities, including 2 underground with orcogres because I'd not bothered guarding the entrance. Mustered my meagre TI units to try and retaliate then realised I didn't have to. Rushed East, slew the 3rd AI and all the cities turned independant again, no garrisons. So off my merry band of heroes went on their dragons, wyverns and lichmounts and rushed South East to finish the map. Resolved all battles automatically and it was done in 5-10 minutes.
ALL Enjoyment sucked out of the game, the campaign and the map. Ruined the whole immersion, story and experience of exploring the map and building your new home.
Put 20 hours into the campaign and I am only upto the start of Mission 6 now, in the elven court. Up until this specific mission it was time well spent and thoroughly enjoyed, Age of Wonders maps have always been grand in scale and scope (irrelevant of actual map size) and fun to explore and build an empire in.
It was in the back of my mind, maybe I could rush this or that and with how the AI works I have had to load up a savegame maybe 30 turns before after coming into an unwinnable situation. It was still done with great pleasure knowing you have to do better not just 'faster'.
Now I am drained of any energy to carry on, fully aware I can just rush my heroes around the start of every mission instead of taking my time expanding and exploring the map having actual fun.
This is the only place where we have a timer like this and I felt it would be a nice change to the usual gameplay. I personally like it, but if it feels better for you I'll delay it by a lot. I cannot remove it altogether as that would require too much changing of texts and scripting etc. at this point in time (all texts point to you needing to be fast etc.).
Expect it in the next patch. (Oh, and you have to start the entire map from scratch to play it with he changes, so start from the win of the 4th scenario).
Maybe it would be a good idea to tell about the time limit at the start? Sure, you're being told to go fast etc, but noting a time limit at the start of the level might give the issue a bit clearer.
Being told to be fast by a npc doesnt work on most gamers.
[joke]
The world is ending, you need to hurry up and save it.
Sure i save it after i did a million side quests because when you npc say the world is ending it useally doesnt do so until i am ready to stop it.
[/joke]
It is a really well made map with a lot of side areas and dungeons (treasure!) to discover, a lot of which require you to tunnel and traverse water to get to. All of which takes a lot of turns so If you don't have a flying tunneling hero you won't have a chance to find any of that while also rushing to kill the NPC's. I went back to the map and surrounded the last enemy hero in their city and even with no opposition from the 20 turns it took to rushwin the map to the turn limit I barely managed to explore the places of interest using 3 flying armies. I've yet to actually continue the campaign though due to the initial bad experience.
If a person hasn't done well upto this point this is also the place to discover the eggs for flying mounts, which is woven into the dwarf leaders story and texts.
Wow! Thats really good of you to comment on this post, and upping the time limit would sure help some that get caught :) I agree though that maybe a mention at the start might be good, Otherwise the game is great :D Ive played all the age of wonders game and really really enjoyed this one :) So thank you :) Even if this one campaign nearly sent me crazy :D So not used to rushing units haha