Eternal Lords Campaign: Resurrection

[Asmodean]

Wow, I think that is the first time I am stuck in the first map hehe (I usually like to play it "hard" mode)

But maybe you can answer me some questions:

1. Quest about proving the betrayal. I searched the map for evidence that the fire bridge was built by the enemy clan but couldn't find anything.

2. How's your strategy? Do you first explore everything before entering the enemy territory? If i am not mistaken the NPC lords start to build anyway if you cross the border or not.

3. How do you deal with those *beeeep* Shrines of Smiting?

Some advice would be great!

[Malaficus Shaikan]

1: i stumbled upon it after most of them where dead.
It was somewhere is the center of the map.
I believe in one of the ruins but i am not entirely sure.

2: there are 4 nearby destroyed towns.
East(where you start)south west and north.
I get the troops near east, turn them into undead.
Conquer the south reainimate that town.
Go to the east destroyed town and clear it out before reanimating it.
Then final aquire the north town.
I send rowlar to the capital to keep him safe and have my leader in the east town(the nearby ice tower thing has a hero for you if you conquer it btw).
Now i fortify like hell itself is comming to claim me.
The enemy mostly just attacked east and north.
From there it was basicly hold the line while getting dreadreapers.
Once you have 6 dreadreapers you are going to raze there town's.

It is a war of attration.
The kind of war undead are good in.

I suggest focusing of skills that allow you to reanimate your killed units(lesser reanimate for starters)
That shoud allow you to keep reviving your units.
Also reanimater are good city defenders(good damage ,heal undead from the go and lesser reanimate when upgraded)

As for shrines.
Pray.
Just kidding,
Devout slayer, walls and numbers.
Shirnes biggest advantage is there machine and quiet resistant to damage.
In large numbers there a pain in the behind.
If you have the hero from spire next to the town in the east(he was a sorceror in my case)
Level him up to chaos rift(and the neccery casting points) asap.
Chaos rift will make your life easier.
Beyond that just make sure you can outproduce the ai while your dreadreapers take away there cities.

[MattStriker]

1.) You need to go up to the Theocrat's area of the map, which should trigger a scripted conversation. If you have talked to the Warlord about the bridge already, that conversation should trigger him going hostile on the Theocrat.

2.) Scout like crazy. Have Lost Souls flying everywhere. You're undead so your units and cities will ignore the happiness penalty from losing your scouts (which you will...most of them will get picked off by something), and resource pickups will help your economy a lot. When in doubt, summon up another scout. Also, when running around with Arvik or any stack with Reanimators (which should be every stack as soon as you can afford it) make use of that cadaver creation ability. Cadavers are entirely disposable scouts that'll greatly extend your exploration radius around any active stacks even if they only last a few turns.

3.) Don't let him build up to that point. Make knocking him out your first priority - he really is a lot more dangerous than the other two in this scenario simply because he consistently hits your weakest resists. When you do go after him make sure you do it with Arvik and that he has the Protection from Light and Bane of the Good skills...that's the only way you won't get slaughtered by all the spirit and fire he throws around.

In general, your priority should be Theocrat > Warlord > Rogue. The Theocrat is the greatest threat. You have decent counters for the Warlord's physical damage (Banshees...gotta love banshees. Also, Warlord units aren't immune to Ghoul Curse), and the Rogue doesn't really have a lot that'll work against you.

Also, make getting the other two heroes an early priority. One of them is hiding in a treasure site (the Hall of the Ancestors near the southern ruined town), make sure you get him ASAP and level the hell out of him...a Sorcerer hero is a godsend in this scenario since you gain a damage type you wouldn't have access to otherwise...and which none of your opponents are resistant to.

[Asmodean]

Thanks a lot for the advice!

[Inscius]

Disclaimer: I played the map on normal difficulty, so my approach may not work in Hard mode.

1: The Theocrat has a bridge over lava next to his throne city, when you scout this out (I think you need to have a unit next to or on the bridge, but it could be that you just need to have it within vision range) you prove that he is able to build bridges over lava, making the Warlord declare war on him.

2: The two above me have some good info, listen to them. I'm probably less qualified to talk about this than them, but here are my two cents anyway:
I personally find that the best approach to this mission (or pretty much any mission in any campaign) is to just rush the enemy with everything you've got. You start out with 4 easy-to-get cities, your enemies start with 2 cities each, making for a total of 6, in addition to that, they all have really powerful throne cities, this means that their capacity to turtle and build up their economy is greater than yours. However, since your unit roster is evenly divided between summons and produced units, you can amass a force quicker than them, and overwhelm them before they get a chance to build up their economy. This is admittedly a pretty high-risk approach.

Just as the others have said, the Theocrat should be your number one target, He likes both spirit and fire damage, both of which are pretty dangerous to you. Once you've completed the proof of treason quest, the Warlord will declare war on the Theocrat and the Rogue will declare war on the Warlord, this is both a blessing and a curse, a blessing in that it makes them waste their units on each other, rather than send them your way, but a curse in that it makes it so that the Warlord gets into a 2-front war (3 if you count the player), and the last thing you want is for the Theocrat and Rouge to partition the Warlord's lands between themselves, it's easier to fight 3 weak leaders than 2 stronger ones. My recommendation would be that you eliminate the Theocrat pretty much in the same breath that you complete the quest, this leaves the Warlord and the Rogue fighting, which should be a more even conflict.

(I have to disagree with MattStriker on the enemy priority, the Rouge is probably the second-most dangerous threat, his early units are easy for you to deal with, but if you let him amass shadow stalkers, you'll be in pretty big trouble, as they are immune to Blight and Frost, and resistant to physical, blocking out almost all of your main damage pathways, this effectively makes him a time bomb. And as the rouge's lands are hidden behind the other two, you have to defeat them before you get to him, so you're in a bit of a hurry.(EDIT: Ignore this bit, I was wrong))

Clearing out treasure sites is all well and good, but consider the opportunity cost, every unit lost to independents is a unit that could have been thrown against your opponent's city walls, and every turn spent chasing after treasures is one less turn of you controlling city X, and one more turn of your enemies controlling city X.

3: Just don't let the Theocrat get to that point, even if you are skilled enough to beat his Shrines (I personally am not), letting the game develop to that state slows everything down into a tedious grind, and that's not very fun.

[MattStriker]

Originally posted by Inscius:

I have to disagree with MattStriker on the enemy priority, the Rouge is probably the second-most dangerous threat, his early units are easy for you to deal with, but if you let him amass shadow stalkers, you'll be in pretty big trouble, as they are immune to Blight and Frost, and resistant to physical, blocking out almost all of your main damage pathways, this effectively makes him a time bomb. And as the rouge's lands are hidden behind the other two, you have to defeat them before you get to him, so you're in a bit of a hurry.

Eh. You have Adept of Fire and numerous units that do a bit of spirit damage on the side (plus two kickass sources of lightning damage in Einar and Rowlar). Meanwhile, Shadow Stalkers do Physical (which your Banshees are highly resitant to) and Frost (which all your units are highly resistant to). Effectively you have more ways to hurt Shadow Stalkers than they have to hurt you.

[Inscius]

Originally posted by MattStriker:

Eh. You have Adept of Fire and numerous units that do a bit of spirit damage on the side (plus two kickass sources of lightning damage in Einar and Rowlar). Meanwhile, Shadow Stalkers do Physical (which your Banshees are highly resitant to) and Frost (which all your units are highly resistant to). Effectively you have more ways to hurt Shadow Stalkers than they have to hurt you.

Well, that's all true. My forces were a bit reanimator-heavy, so I probably had a harder time with them than I should have, but how did you get Rowlar to do lightning damage? Doesn't he come with a longbow by default?

[Malaficus Shaikan]

Originally posted by Inscius:

Originally posted by MattStriker:

Eh. You have Adept of Fire and numerous units that do a bit of spirit damage on the side (plus two kickass sources of lightning damage in Einar and Rowlar). Meanwhile, Shadow Stalkers do Physical (which your Banshees are highly resitant to) and Frost (which all your units are highly resistant to). Effectively you have more ways to hurt Shadow Stalkers than they have to hurt you.

Well, that's all true. My forces were a bit reanimator-heavy, so I probably had a harder time with them than I should have, but how did you get Rowlar to do lightning damage? Doesn't he come with a longbow by default?

Druid heroes now have an upgrade that give them call lighting(the horned god spelllike ability)

[Anvos]

For me the betray quest was actually fairly easy once I got time to send the heroes down south to do it since one of my scout necro units had already scouted the lava bridge, but once you get that done with in my game rouge and warlord keep each other fairly busy. Answer is pretty much use your expendable scouts.

Also if you get to it there is a goblin city on the underground, you can either tunnel to or go sailing to find semi helps with mono race battle troubles.

As for shrines of smiting I just kept trying to whittle them down by catching them when they didn't have alot of back up units to buff them. I think eventually I just went with sending a stack of trebuchets along with attack forces to deal with them, though yeah theo and necro do have a bit of a classial nemiss going on with theos abundance of spirit damage and necro having spells like enemy of the faith and desecration to put a hurting on support and devout units.

Overal this campaign does have a nice difficulty, though mission 1 is pretty much a lesson in why frostling is a crapy mono race duel.