Can't Beat Haven Mission 4

[Krytia]

Hey guys!

So I got the game the other day that have been enjoying it (more or less). However, I seem to be stuck on mission 4 of the Haven campaign (A Feast for Gods). I can't seem to build up my army/castles fast enough before the AI starts attacking me, and he seems to be much more OP than what I can handle so early on in the game.

Anyone has any tips or suggestions? Should I abandon trying to have 3 castles and focus just on one? I'm about to restart the campaign for the 4th time and I'm only playing it on Normal x.x

[EddelPlus]

It was a bit hard on hard difficulty, but if it hadn't been, it wouldn't be good. Diplo with 25% rebate is really useful here to get more troops early. Hold back on Town Halls and pay for extra crossbow firing power instead.

I sacrificed the Orc inside the Orc town. That weakened one army enough for a rather easy kill by the combined Haven forces and left enough troops for taking on the other.

After that the map isn't hard anymore, just large and a bit tedious.

[MOFO]

u dont have to win against them with sub heroes. keep tomas alive, u can either nerf their armies with sub heroes or merge same faction army of urs to defeat them, but u have to abandon 2 towns, keep hammer fall. cuz they wont attack hammer fall while they capturing other towns of urs.

[DecayWolf]

Funny, found this thread researching for a fix for Estates skill.
Anyways, playing on Heroic difficult, I've to say that 3 stacks of almost 30 champions toke me by surprise.

I did not made a optimal start, I've sent Bilashi to East to explore that region. Didn't had previously map knowledge so...
Ella took a Haven Fortress at east and ended cleaning the entire orc region.
Tomas and Ymoril kinda ended going on the same direction, to the south east, on the crytal mine, gold mine and haven fortress.

Then the enemy came, I teleported Tomas (he only had his and Ymoril's army) to Blackforge. Orna completely ignored him and did go for the orc's city.

I had Ymoril with Suzerain + Town Defence, so I figured, even though Orna is a better hero than Ella and has a much stronger army, the 6 towers shoot per turn + summon elemental + gates + moat would do, right?
yeah, I was half correct, never in my entire I saw a more retarded and brain dead tower targeting.
The enemy sent his champion to unleash carnage upon my troops, while my towers were targeting legionneries, guardians all outside town.
No seriously, he only had 4 units that could attack me, Marksman, Abbot, Griffing and Seraph.
Marksman and Abbot were doing almost no damage, griffing would also deal crap damage and my troops would eat him alive, but his champion... I literally didn't had anything to stop it. I needed my towers to kill it. It was inside my fortress unleashing rampage, while my towers were killing guardians, legionnaries... It did go as far as wasting it's triple shot on 1 unit left alive from a legionnary. I had to survive more than 18 turns until the retarded towers started picking his champions. Survived only due elementals, mind you. Something that the towers could've wiped them out on turn 5 max, leaving me with almost my entire army left alive and health.

Anyways, after a extremely frustrating session, from the most retarded tower targeting from HOMM frahcise history, neither Melisandre nor Serguei wanted to attack Tomas.
Instead they merged armies, reaching the deadly level and then attacked.
Well, since HOMM VII is HOMM VII, as you could've espect Tower Defence from Ymoril's Suserazin did not work and I just rage quit.

__

Then reloaded a earlier save, did the following.
Merged Ella troops with Tomas and attacked Orna.
Lost 2 cavalry, a few legionaries and 24 Abbot.
1 enemy left, 2 to go.

Melisandre army was next, she was in range of both Blackforge and Ymoril. Tomas was without movement points and so was Ymoril.
She ignored Tomas and did go for her instead.

Ymoril had 164 wolfs and 249 legionaries that she got from Neutrals. Afterall she had GM Diplomacy + Embassy.
Melisandre army was 'deadly'
The battle was hilarious easy, even though she didn't had artifacts nor army. I simply placed a legionary on the corner and a wolf to defend em.
Preemptive strike + GM defence + stone skin + Warcry Hold the ground, was simply too much for the AI to handle.
His 10 champions were killing 3 wolfs per attack and losing 3 champions, all others were dying before even landing a single hit.

I shouldn've won this match with about 15 loses or so, but then there was the enemy range still alive.
In total I lost 47 wolfs and 66 legionaries and as such I've wiped the 2 army of 3.

1 left to go.

Thing is, Tomas has about 10ish more might stats than Serguei, and Serguei army is on Modest difficult level to Tomas... Plus the AI on this game is garbage.
So... Map over.

Still, I'm thinking about restarting from Haven map 2, to change the builds entirely.
Since for Ymoril Suzerain was a pointless waste of points, due this skill is bugged and doesn't work properly, + the enemy will glady ignore my defending hero and somewhere else.
Also in map 2, there are no enemies, and in map 3, they sent a 192 champion stack which can only be killed by completing the ritual, making the skill useless on these levels as well.

To make things better, somehow the town portal doesn't work in other places, which is also bugged.
So yeah, suzerain was a nice waste of skill points. I mean, for Ymori lthat is.
If I had Suzerain + Economy, would be pretty nice, but she doesn't.

Another problem was Tomas build itself. I spec him as a sort of Light caster.
I knew he would sort of suck at it, but I expected that map's extra stats combined with artifacts would make him a averange caster?
Well, that didn't happen, he only has 4 Magic but 12 spirit.
Neither map 2 or 3 gave me ressurection, so... He was casting Celestial armor for 76 damage reduction, lol.
To make things even better, the map starts me with Embassy, meaning I can't cast spells one level higher, on master level, instad of expert.

Edit: That neck which gives +12 magic for light spells, did not make Celestial Armor better, still the same 76 crap dmg reduction. So light for Tomas is officially busted.

Sure, after killing Orna I got that neck which gives me 12 Magic to Light spells, but I still don't have ressurection and once Seguei is dead the map would be over.
Yeah I feel going light to Tomas was a waste of Skill Points as well.
I tried Warcry earlier but without Warlord GM, it didn't felt good enough either. I mean, Leadership's Leading by Example, reduces the value of Warcries for Tomas, IMO.

So, thinking about spec him as Warfare instead, see how it goes. So yeah, thinking about restarting the campaign, to try another build.

Overall I've to say, the map design for HOMM VII is terrible.
It's such a shame, because the units were well varied, the factions feels diferent, the combat has a good pace, each magic school is strong and viable, but not as OP as in V or III or IV.
I mean in terms of balance design this should be the best game from the franchise till date, but maps were so poorly designed, plus the endless amount of bugs, not to mention the worse AI till date. Such a shame.

[BiG(Mauro)]

Just get to this location as fast as you can. Minute 4:44
https://youtu.be/08Z41qhIXdg?t=284