How are you meant to beat the Avelorn campaign? I'm getting absolutely destroyed.

[Desolate Eden]

Can't make the money to keep sending armies to stop other factions from doing the ritual while also getting raided by norsca, chaos and dark elves. Pretty brutal campaign even on normal for me. I'm on turn 100 and while im out killing dark elves and taking over their capitals, norsca is running behind and taking over everything I just claimed while chaos and skaven are taking out the other high elves factions on my island and giving me debuffs for not controlling it fully lol

[Xaphnir]

Lots of Sisters of Avelorn. Confederate Eataine and Yvresse as soon as possible.

[Wh♂♂par]

Ignore the ritual.

[nord2hammer]

Originally posted by Wh♂♂par:

Ignore the ritual.

That ↑
And stop blowing your money on intervention armies.

[Cult of Tzeentch]

Originally posted by Xaphnir:

Lots of Sisters of Avelorn. Confederate Eataine and Yvresse as soon as possible.

this. and a mage with lore of shadow or Heaven magic. get pit of shades asap and Chain Lightning

[eRe4s3r]

It is far better to go light mage for actual commanding lords if you play Alarielle, and 1 hand-maiden in every army to get the archer buffs. Only magic you need is sparkling sisters and a net of amnetok to make sure those sparkles sparkle in the right place. Ignore ritual, unite the donut and live happily ever after with your worst best friend enemy... Tyrion. Whom you will likely not ever peacefully confederate and yet you will still try and try until you get force confederation mod and accept defeat because Tyrion is a sadistic frenemy, your worst nightmare....

No, I for sure wasn't talking from experience......................

[kekkuli]

Ignore the rituals, kill everybody and then do the rituals.

[Jose_Biden]

Yeah just keep ur main lord beefed up with a nice stack, and make sure he’s not in march stance on the final turn of whoever’s ritual. Then it will give u the option to teleport to the ritual site where u can kick their asses alongside other factions.

I found this out the hard way, I used to sail 4 stacks of armies all across the world trying to find the ritual site by following the glowing ribbon in the sky. . But u don’t have to do that, just wait until it gives u the teleport option

[Empukris]

You can outpace the AI on normal and hard on the ritual progression, its not easy but many actually finish the campaign in the normal way. Just aim to consolidate all of the territory in your starting position and aim for the province that give you the ritual currency, there should be at least 2 nearby. Very hard and legendary however is almost impossible for you to be faster than the AI, the only way to be faster than them is to interrupt their ritual. The good news is as many mentioned here you dont lose the game even if the AI finish the last ritual, CA do that probably think it will be too hard and frustrating for most player if you automatically lose.

If the chaos wave location frustrate you, just save scum to know where they spawn in advance. Lightning strike and walls are a must if you do ritual and you MUST put 1 stack at your capital. Your rival will definitely send an army each direct to your capital. You will be fighting 3 doomstacks at your capital for the last 3 ritual. Take note that difficulty increase the amount of chaos wave stacks that spawn. Vortex campaign is really hard if you do it normally, there is no shame if you reduce the difficulty to hard or normal when you can beat very hard or legendary easily on ME.

The easiest way, ignore the ritual and just build a doomstack on Alarielle, if you dont know how to use full sister spam, mix it with a bit of phoenix guard and dragon. You should be able to beat the AI even without magic at all. Wait for the final battle, slaughter them and weaken the AI by sacking their capital. If they are weak enough, they will not be able to finish the ritual.

There is a few tips that I can give if you decide that you need the challenge and want to do it normally, the AI cant reject the ritual, so even if they dont have enough army to defend against the chaos wave they will still start the ritual the moment they have enough ritual currency. If you want to snipe a ritual, I recommend you attack the 2nd and 3rd city instead of the capital. You dont need to wipe a faction as it will just shift the ritual to the other faction for example killing Morrs will just shift the ritual to Pestilence or Rictus which make the situation worse. Build walls everywhere and only use RoR as emergency army, this is a must in Vortex campaign.

[Empiro]

It's very possible to outpace the AI on any of the campaign difficulties. If you can control 3 ritual resource sites, you should be able to keep pace. If you can control 4, then you'll win handily. The final ritual also takes 20 turns, so you have extra time. I consider my campaign a failure if I can't stop the enemy from completing the final ritual, but in all my campaigns, that has never happened.

I don't know exactly what's going on in your campaign, but it sounds like you're having strategic trouble rather than combat. As HE, it's generally pretty easy to make money. Trade with neighboring Elven factions, and send out scouts to make contact with other friendly / neutral factions like Tomb Kings or the Huntsmarshal Expedition. Secure Ulthuan first -- either by conquering or confederating the weak HE factions. In my games, Tyrion tends to snowball so hard he is #1 in power, and I'm never able to confederate him, but it means that no foes will ever step foot on Ulthuan.

Make sure to build defensive structures in all of your settlements, especially minor ones. You absolutely should not be having Norsca taking over things you've taken. It sounds like you're also spreading yourself out too thin. Like I said -- secure Ulthuan with one army while using a second one to take over either Ghrond or Vaul's Anvil. It's better to hold on to a small number of complete and defensible provinces rather than capturing and then losing a bunch more.

[Desolate Eden]

I didn't beat it as avelorn but i finished it with tyrion first try, huge difference in difficulty imo, ill try averlorn again some time in the future

[Ashley]

They're both pretty safe vortex wise. As opposed to some starts that start with an enemy in every direction.

[Logi]

Concentrate on utterly destroying one enemy at a time if you can. So in Vortex they dont have a lot of settlements and can be eradicated pretty quickly along with Sartosa. Then you can turn your full attention to the Dark Elves.

[Emrys of Ailliau]

lol honestly if your having trouble you are probably doing something basic incorrectly. in my experience high elves are easy mode even on legendary difficulty. even Teclis who in my opinion has the most difficult starting position is easy once you fight your way out of the initial box.
the best advice i can give if you are having trouble strategically as Alareille is to max out your influence gain and use the court intrigue mechanic to increase the relationship between you and a potential enemy you want to delay fighting, or get 2 potential enemies to fight each other instead. this has to be done with a good degree of foresight to pre-emptively ensure that you only fight one enemy at a time.

be aware that the ai tends to invite other factions to join wars, so when you start a war try to already be in a position to finish it quickly to minimize that risk.