Stoutheart Level 4

[snoosnaa]

Absolutely hating this level, and after watching and reading some guides, seems to confirm that it's BS. I wish there was at least a little guidance when picking skills, I fear I made some wrong choices, but I don't want to replay hours from the beginning. Annoyed.

[Infectiousmeat]

You may have to start over, it seems like it's either luck of the RNG. Or you have to learn every detail of the game to win. It is possible to win. Some people do it easier. Others bash their head against a wall. But it can be done. Good luck!

[Morphic]

It depends. Generally, even if you have lackluster skills/items, this map is winnable on Fair and Worthy without too much trouble. Overwhelming is a completely different story though.

What are you having trouble with and what is your main hero looking like item/skill wise? What difficulty are you playing on? What sorts of buildings/units do you get within the first ~20 turns?

Unless you did something like Income Skills + Tutor + Destruction magic(you don't really get any units that give destruction essence) as your only skills... you shouldn't really need to start over and might simply need to optimize the first few turns and what sort of units you get, etc. Even if you have suboptimal skills, as long as you were smart/good idea what skills you picked, you should be able to win. E.g. you took Gold and Celestial Ore income skills... those alone could give you a big headstart and let you rush for knights and their upgrade.

Personally, I was able to beat this map on Overwhelming and I didn't have a "magic build" like a lot of people say to do. I started this map with my Cecilia having Order, Combat Training, Guard, Magic Resistance, and Positioning with her Powers being Rigor and Brutal. Granted I was optimized since I was doing Overwhelming Difficulty. It was tough but manageable until I spiraled out of control for a bit because I got overconfident and screwed up... so it took me like ~65 turns to win lol.

[Central]

stoutheart level 4 has way to high a difficulty jump compared to the other 3 levels.
i have tried it so many times now and i just cannot win, even on fair. i can beat the first 2 waves of enemies but they respawn with units way to quickly. i can never get enough reinforcements in time to beat back the rest of the enemies.

i can deal with things being hard if i can at least understand what i am doing wrong but i just have no idea what i am supposed to do.

as soon as i get the first city i start towards a barracks, after that i expand into the faey buildings. i upgrade my buildings as soon as i can so i have access to the upgraded units.
i send my main wielder to the west, going towards lakeview, the second one goes east to claim all the free units while the third goes north towards the tiny town of two lakes to claim everything in that area. i can generally take care of whatever enemies is near lakeview but i take losses in doing so, than their second group comes down, always from another position and i take to many losses from that second fight, it all goes down hill from there.
i just never have enough resources or manpower to replace the losses i get during combat.

my main hero is level 14 when this mission starts,
command 7, guard 1, combat training 1, order magic 3, magic resistance 2, chaos magic 2, creation magic 1, rigor 1.
notable items: cape of leaves (+20% ranged resistance), talisman of order, talisman of chaos.

any advice would be appreciated.
i really want to move on to a new campaign but i fear i will just run into the same problems. so i kind of feel like i have to beat this mission first before moving on.

[FreezeZ]

You have okay skills. Focus on getting command to max and magic res. Your weakest choice would be rigor but I don't know what options you had on level 8.

Don't build barracks. Both units from them are in bad spot currently. Its better to go for militia/sappers plus knights. Focus on building up one, big army on Cecilia. Other 2 wielders can act as mules for units or use them to pick up free stuff and free units.

You have something around 25 turns before 1st Loth Wielder arrives and I think it should be Roderick but I am not sure if it always him first. So you can take your time exploring area around you, there are 2 celestial ore mines but be wary as Roderick comes from there. I would avoid any fights that are not settlements or important mines. There are few small settlement there and I would advise to build Rally point in one of them to get units faster. Don't be afraid of scrificing settlement or secondary wielder its not a big loss as long as your main army is strong, you should be able to beat him on fair/worthy. From there you should quickly replenish and go noirth the way he came from.

There is some randomness as there is chance that you will meet another enemy Wielder so that can make dent in your army but there i another small settlement on the road to main objective were you can replenish and take away some essence towers from the enemy.

[Morphic]

Originally posted by Central:

any advice would be appreciated.
i really want to move on to a new campaign but i fear i will just run into the same problems. so i kind of feel like i have to beat this mission first before moving on.

On Fair... what seemed to be really effective for me is:

1. Proceed as normal from start, take Glimmer at every option instead of gold and XP over Amber. Try really hard to keep your losses to a minimum, especially your knights.
   
2. Once you get the Fey wielders, split up and have Cecilia go north to cap Two Lakes, makes the Fey head north east-ish into the Fey forest to grab the Fey units for free and the goodies there.
   
3. Don't bother with Barracks, grab a Grove instead and rush to upgrade the town and get an Armory and Marketplace. Focus on getting Fey unit upgrades, especially Damage and the Spirit upgrades.(I grabbed 1 Horned One upgrade for the movement)
   
4. Make Cecilia continue North and east a bit, get to the Castle and upgrade your Knights(I had 9) and recruit more if you can unless your army has no extra slots/your still topped off. Now you're going to want to continue North but start hugging right to fight the Froglings.
   
5. Roderick is likely going to come down from the FoW and attack Cecilia, it'll be tough but you should win.(I autobattled and won but lost most of my army) Continue North and you should come out of the Frogling area and see some Footmen/Rangers, they should be free. Collect them and make it Stonebreach. Grab free units around there and head south to take the Lolth town between Two Lakes and Stonebreach.
   
6. While you are doing all that, have your Fey Wielders grab nearby freebies and work their way West a little bit to grab those settlements and farms/gold mine. Upgrade those Asap and get Upgraded Farms and Groves.
   
7. After Cecilia either converts or razes that Lolth town... you should be in a fairly strong position to work your way however you want. Your Wielders should be fairly evenly split between your three "sections" of territory so they can respond to any incursions or converge to help each other. Just don't push out too far until you are ready/strong.

You might want to have Cecilia fight against Dr. Marjatta and that bald girl since they typically are Magic focused wielders, especially the bald one since she usually has relics/items that further boost Essence and Spell Damage.(Unless you roll Spell res on your other wielders) So getting a win on them to claim said artifacts is usually huge. Roderick can become a beast too since he usually gets Essence Shield and combat skills like the various resistances and Cunning... which make fights incredibly tough.

I'd also shy away from getting Fey Nobles right away since the AI will love to spam Justice or whatever that instantly kills 1 from the stack. Bald girl usually is able to get 3-5 casts of it in a single round, pretty much instagibbing a stack. However, it can be helpful to have them to proxy for your knights. IMO, your bread and butter units are going to be Horned ones, Spirits, and Sappers until you can try swapping to Archers and Shields of Order/Knights. You could also try skipping the Armory and instead grab Academy since Stonebreach has an Armory.(I usually sell the Stonebreach armory and get an Academy there later on)

If you are still having major problems, then you'll need to be a little more specific or try to be a bit faster getting key things like towns. E.g. only getting stuff that's very close along the path to the town, leaving the other stuff until after you claim the town. Another thing is avoiding taking free units if your army is full/upgraded, instead maybe drop off 1-2 units at the town so you can nab the freebies and return to town to upgrade them. Then leave em in there for extra defense or when you need to replenish.

TLDR: Basically, rush North with Cecilia(she was strongest) to get Stronebreach but watch out for Roderick as he will intercept. Have your Fey wielders go into the fey forest area for units/goodies and grab the nearby small settlements to the west. Skip barracks and get Groves so you can spam Farms for gold to keep getting units/upgrades. Get Fey Troop Improvements, especially Damage/HP and Spirit upgrades(they become fairly deadly and spamable).

[ColdWonder]

I just managed to beat it after 60 turns. I think it was getting tons of upgrades that was key.
I noticed human troops do not hit hard enough to beat the enemy armies you need to mix in Fey for some killing power.

Tie the enemy up with swordsmen then pick caster types off with the fey ragers.

[snoosnaa]

I finally beat it myself. Thanks for the responses and advice. I actually ended up starting the campaign over, to better select my skills. I took Rigor at 8 and 16. Got Command to where I could hold 7 troops, then the one item gives you +1 as well. After that I picked defensive skills like magic resist and melee resist.

I didn't ever end up defeating the doctor lol. I transferred all of Gnaws troops to Gianna, then had her run around and pick up all the fey, while also running back and dropping off extras at strongholds so I wouldn't waste troops. Gianna pushed north to that big city fairly early on my second run, and using rally points at a few different settlements helped. Both Gnaw and Gianna ended up getting defeated, but I loaded up Cecilia and pushed West to defeat Wiesh. I had a bunch of research completed as well.

[Samseng Yik]

The only wrong choice of skill is only possible if you never pick command.
Imagine try to beat every campaign with only 3 stack units.

[Lavapotion]

Originally posted by snoosnaa:

I finally beat it myself. Thanks for the responses and advice. I actually ended up starting the campaign over, to better select my skills. I took Rigor at 8 and 16. Got Command to where I could hold 7 troops, then the one item gives you +1 as well. After that I picked defensive skills like magic resist and melee resist.

I didn't ever end up defeating the doctor lol. I transferred all of Gnaws troops to Gianna, then had her run around and pick up all the fey, while also running back and dropping off extras at strongholds so I wouldn't waste troops. Gianna pushed north to that big city fairly early on my second run, and using rally points at a few different settlements helped. Both Gnaw and Gianna ended up getting defeated, but I loaded up Cecilia and pushed West to defeat Wiesh. I had a bunch of research completed as well.

Sounds like a good combination of skills won the day! We know its beatable regardless but sometimes its definitely more of a challenge.

Next update comes with a "simple" choice for campaign maps for those that want to take it a bit easier.

[snoosnaa]

Originally posted by Lavapotion:

Originally posted by snoosnaa:

I finally beat it myself. Thanks for the responses and advice. I actually ended up starting the campaign over, to better select my skills. I took Rigor at 8 and 16. Got Command to where I could hold 7 troops, then the one item gives you +1 as well. After that I picked defensive skills like magic resist and melee resist.

I didn't ever end up defeating the doctor lol. I transferred all of Gnaws troops to Gianna, then had her run around and pick up all the fey, while also running back and dropping off extras at strongholds so I wouldn't waste troops. Gianna pushed north to that big city fairly early on my second run, and using rally points at a few different settlements helped. Both Gnaw and Gianna ended up getting defeated, but I loaded up Cecilia and pushed West to defeat Wiesh. I had a bunch of research completed as well.

Sounds like a good combination of skills won the day! We know its beatable regardless but sometimes its definitely more of a challenge.

Next update comes with a "simple" choice for campaign maps for those that want to take it a bit easier.

The battles against the other wielders are really what is the hardest. I still never beat Doctor Marjatta. Part of the problem is that so much is going on during their turns, I wasn't even able to get a good idea of what I could do to get better. Troops are exploding and all sorts of spells being cast, my troops just dying lol. Is there a battle log somewhere perhaps that shows what the enemy did the previous turn?

[Lakota]

Originally posted by Lavapotion:

Next update comes with a "simple" choice for campaign maps for those that want to take it a bit easier.

Its kind of insulting that us 30 year 4x veterans are given a "hold our hand" mode. The problem is
1) you don't give us the tools or knowledge we need to beat this mission.
2) fix the cheating AI by reasonably matching our skills. (ie. dont send the AI with 5x our power and expect us to deal with it.

I'm so cheesed about this game and I bought it in EA and NOTHING has been addressed. Won't be buying any of your DLC.

[FreezeZ]

Originally posted by Nate and Lakota:

Originally posted by Lavapotion:

Next update comes with a "simple" choice for campaign maps for those that want to take it a bit easier.

Its kind of insulting that us 30 year 4x veterans are given a "hold our hand" mode. The problem is
1) you don't give us the tools or knowledge we need to beat this mission.
2) fix the cheating AI by reasonably matching our skills. (ie. dont send the AI with 5x our power and expect us to deal with it.

I'm so cheesed about this game and I bought it in EA and NOTHING has been addressed. Won't be buying any of your DLC.

Current Fair difficulty is easier than it was in EA. AI is not cheating and on fair it even gets debuffs.

SoC is not HoMM. While they are similar in general concept they are very different in how they work.

The biggest issue with campaigns is general balance as currently its skewed heavily in favour of magic.

[Lakota]

Originally posted by FreezeZ:

Current Fair difficulty is easier than it was in EA. AI is not cheating and on fair it even gets debuffs.

SoC is not HoMM. While they are similar in general concept they are very different in how they work.

When a developer advertises their game as a "love letter to the classic turn-based strategy games of the 90's" with H0MM3 graphics and visuals, that is not the purchaser's fault for buying a game that is presented to be a love letter of HoMM3. I didn't find out it was a completely different game until hours in after i couldn't get a refund.

People complained about campaign difficulty from two years ago and they are still in 1.0. Maybe this isn't an AI problem, but it is certainly a design problem.

[LexGeneralis]

Originally posted by Nate and Lakota:

1) you don't give us the tools or knowledge we need to beat this mission.

All the tools are available. You just need to read, make some experiences and most of all use your brain. That's all you need. And I beat every single mission even on overwhelming, so....

[Lakota]

Originally posted by LexGeneralis:

All the tools are available. You just need to read, make some experiences and most of all use your brain. That's all you need. And I beat every single mission even on overwhelming, so....

And to be a great artist all you need is a brush. If you don't have theory of mind then I can see why you would think this way.