Anyone have a walkthrough for Elven Court: Faith Reborn?

[Didz]

I'm on my second attempt at this beginners mission, and so far it seems to be going ok.

I gave up the on the first attempt as Gustav Gorsmog was throwing wave after wave of juggernauts at me before I'd even managed to research the Shrines of Smiting, and so I was getting nowhere.

This time the boot seems to be on the other foot, and I've got several shrines whilst he doesn't seem to have started fielding juggernauts yet.

However, I'm curious as to the right strategy for invading his domain.

I've taken all the swamp cities and they are producing plenty of mana and research, though gold is a bit of a problem. So, I can't develop all of them at once, about half need to be kept on mercantile activity to boost the gold income.

Gustav seems content to keep trying to push armies down the central pass towards the city of Larrag, and even Voraditius Pontifex Maximus seems to favour this route when attacking. So, at the moment all my three heroes and their armies are focused on defending Larrag and destroying the incoming enemies.

However, my scouts have discovered a long valley to the north near the city of Narwac, and I'm curious whether this is intended to be the sneaky approach to penetrating Gustavs defences, and whether i should try to free up an army to push along it. There is a fortress at the end which seems to beg being taken and might act as a rally point for the final assault, and there is an underground entrance nearby which is intriguing.

Likewise there is a river to the south near Jiffog which leads direcly to Voraditius' main city. In the first play through I tried to build up a strong force of Goblin Exalted to take this by airbourne assault, but I never got a chance to launch it before Gustav began his juggernaut assault on Larrag.

So, I'm just looking for advice and guidance reallly, as obviously if I just sit around in Larrag eventually Gustav is going to overwhelm my defences.

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=449305189

[MattStriker]

Grab the nearby goblin towns ASAP. Use the ones in the back to fuel your economy, build up a decent attack stack in the one closest to the enemy. Hit that one town in the mountain pass before it can be built up beyond a single stack, then sweep further and try to grab one of the cities beyond the pass. Ideally, this map should be over bar the cleanup long before either side gets to field T4s.

[ThunderGr]

The most significant problem for you in that map will be the sneaking forces the AI sends to the southern part of the swamps. In my first playthrough there, I lost a city to that and then I had to devote a lot of time fighting for that territory or else the entire swamp is threatened. Second time, though, I was ready to prevent that from happening and I had a much easier time.

[Gloweye]

The right strategy for everything this level is ASAP. At least until you kill Gorsmog.

Here's the guide I wrote a while ago:

http://age-of-wonders-3.wikia.com/wiki/User_blog:Gloweye/Elven_Court_-_Faith_Reborn

(never completed the series, but I've got this one at least.)

[Didz]

Originally posted by jaccovandorpGloweye:

Here's the guide I wrote a while ago:

http://age-of-wonders-3.wikia.com/wiki/User_blog:Gloweye/Elven_Court_-_Faith_Reborn

Thanks I'll take a look at this although at a quick glance I'm already on the wrong path as I've wasted time building up my strength and research before attacking.

Originally posted by MattStriker:

Hit that one town in the mountain pass before it can be built up beyond a single stack, then sweep further and try to grab one of the cities beyond the pass. Ideally, this map should be over bar the cleanup long before either side gets to field T4s.

I'm not sure what you mean by this. In my first attempt I did rush the central pass and seized one of the dwarven towns beyond it belonging to Gustav. But the area beyond the pass is actually populated be three conjoined dwarven towns. So as I found to my cost just capturing one leaves you exposed and weak right under the walls of two more.

[Gloweye]

Originally posted by Didz:

Originally posted by MattStriker:

Hit that one town in the mountain pass before it can be built up beyond a single stack, then sweep further and try to grab one of the cities beyond the pass. Ideally, this map should be over bar the cleanup long before either side gets to field T4s.

I'm not sure what you mean by this. In my first attempt I did rush the central pass and seized one of the dwarven towns beyond it belonging to Gustav. But the area beyond the pass is actually populated be three conjoined dwarven towns. So as I found to my cost just capturing one leaves you exposed and weak right under the walls of two more.

When I did this level, on Hard, I was able to eradicate Gorsmog and take all his cities without building any units.

If the center 3 cities are to strong, just take his Throne and kill the leader, which should give you plenty of time to build up.

Most important about this level is that you always attack with numbers - you get loads of units during the buildup in the swamp, and you should use them straight away. If you can get 3 stacks against a single one of his, do it - AI always splits off at least 1 unit to every attacking army, which makes it much easier to flank and overwhelm him with numbers.