Guardian Angels

Team Catherine's march toward the Erathian capitol of Steadwick continues. In this scenario, Christian, Sandro, and Caitlin find themselves investigating the sleepy town of Fair Feather. For reasons that are unexplained, Fair Feather has a giant celestial doorway hovering above it. Although the forces of Nighon and Eeofol have managed to surround the town with tunnels, their attempts to take the city have failed thanks to the town's angelic guardians. It's up to Team Catherine to fight off the bad guys and recruit the angels.

As far as map sizes go, this one is so tiny that visiting a single redwood observatory reveals everything. Fair Feather is stationed at the very center of the map and there are two skull-shaped subterranean gateways on either side. Occasionally, a dungeon or inferno hero emerges from the tunnels and tries to invade. Thankfully, the random stacks of angels scattered around Fair Feather serve as buffers and will also join the party if a hero approaches.

This map also presents a sidequest. Specifically, Team Catherine needs to find a pair of winged shoes to give to an old man. The reward is 10 free angels, which gives our heroes a huge advantage against the invaders.

The sparkling land that surrounds Fair Feather is called a magic plain. Any hero that stands on a magic plain will find his or her spells boosted to expert proficiency.

Speaking of skill levels, I've concluded there are a few skills in the game that simply shouldn't be learned when playing a long campaign. The first such skill is Eagle Eye, which enables heroes to learn new spells when an opponent casts them. In a long campaign, spells carry over from map to map, meaning a hero will naturally enlarge their spellbooks by visiting Mage Guilds. The benefits of Eagle Eye are thus overshadowed by the cost of neglecting more important skills like Ballistics or Logistics.

Another skill to avoid learning is Scouting, which grants a +1 bonus to scouting radius. Unfortunately, Scouting becomes useless as soon as the shroud is removed. The developers improved the skill in subsequent games by introducing fog of war and enabling heroes to spy on opponents' skills and army size. But in Heroes III, Scouting sucks.

In developing Team Catherine, I tried to focus on skills that would make my team more effective in combat. Leadership (better morale/extra turns) and Luck (better luck/double damage) allowed my armies to cut through hordes of weak enemies while suffering minimal damage.

These skills, combined with the awesome might of angels, made it easy for our heroes to destroy the Nighon and Eeofol presence in the area. Caitlin and Christian guarded the subterranean gateways to prevent the enemy from escaping the tunnels. Then, Sandro went around to each of the enemy towns and went medieval on their asses!