Impossible campaign

[Thomas]

So, are the campaigns impossible to finish? I am on the last dark elf mission, where you have to kill Phoebas, and I keep losing. He sends stacks of 40 units at me all the time. And mind you I have it set to BEGINNER DIFFICULTY. I mean, how are you supposed to win when the ai CONTSTANTLY cheats?

[5M0k1N]

been years since i played it but i remember beating it on its hardest so its definately doable :p
maybe check playthrough on youtube to get some tips

[Thomas]

Lol, I don't know how you beat it, as for playthroughs, there really aren't any.

[5M0k1N]

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL2mVwWymK5NPb9agXORmy0cz-v-HTIvdq
i think all the missions are on that playlist but not sure. its not english but should still help

[Akomis]

Just finished whole campaign on max difficulty. In this mission i had a hero that could beat a garrison of 8-12 units solo. So i used him to harras, got few his towns (south from Phoebas capital) until i got high level towns. Also constantly built demonic dragonflies to scout, catch objects and annoy ai. From my experience it helps a lot - ai could send a whole pack of units after only one raider.

If you weak heroes - try to play turtle style. 40 units could be beaten really hard with 3 packs of ranged units at strategic city. Get few tanks to keep the gates (just dont attack on your own, dont go forward when gates are broken). Shades with thier life steal, phys protection and ok armor are good at it. Then get catapults/cannons/any ranged units you can afford. You can trade 3 to 20, ot 5 to 40 if done right.

Another solution - go all air. That is my way to beat last mission. The key thing - if no units could damage your air and your air took the chokepoint - you are invincible.

[Thomas]

Yea, I finally beat it by summoning 8 death angels and just razing every one of his cities one by one. Guess I just needed to be creative.

[Division By Zero]

There's a similar mission in the StarCraft: Brood War campaign that periodically sends an overpowered fast-moving melee unit (upgraded Zerg Ultralisk) at your base. After a while I built a group of flying battlecruisers to counter it.. and also sent a separate battlecruiser group to flatten its respawn point

tl;dr; build more battlecruisers

This works in the original AoW as well. Air galleys with the medieval railgun (javelin ballista) hard-counter half the game.

Ground melee is underpowered in most strategy games for several reasons: Can't attack flying units, ranged units usually get 1-2 free attacks before melee closes in, and melee units tend to block each other.

[Theorden]

Yes that's the best way to defeat Phobias, RAISE EVERY CITY HE HAS AND THEN RECREATE THEM IN YOUR IMAGE. You can only defeat him by becoming him...

[uuamenator]

Burton, there's also an option of just massing troops the same way he does. Brute force counters brute force. As long as you have some kind of gold income (your gold income doesn't fall into negatives) you can keep creating more troops. And should you go overboard for a certain army fight, you can disband troops later. Also, playing the macro game, building lots of packs and then sending them to the enemy and autocombatting everything just to weaken his big army zerg is also an option. Also, there should be a way to attack armies over land with your global spells, you might want to check your options. Generally, just keep producing even the lowest tier 1 rangers, it should help your macro game greatly. Also, you will never win unless you do some offensive actions as well. take a town, explore the map, grab what's not nailed down, and KEEP TRAINING UNITS.

[vivela12gb]

Keeping your heroes alive and building them up, giving them the means to dominate Phobius' heroes and recruit them as well is the key. Moving slowly with your stack of high-level heroes will eventually win it. A war of attrition though. I play on max difficulty and never raze an enemy city, just absorb it and build it up. The link below is by far the best guide to the game.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/pc/914785-age-of-wonders-shadow-magic/faqs/25311