For the Throne

For the Throne is the final map in the FoL campaign. At long last, we come to the final showdown between upstart barbarian Kilgor and longstanding monarch Winston Boragus. There are no more silly restrictions and you are free to lose any of Kilgor's allies without the game being over.

That being said, the key to victory is to topple the opponent's heroes and steal their artifacts before they do the same to you. Yes, this sounds obvious. However, there's a twist. Since neither side has access to taverns, defeats are permanent! If you defeat an enemy hero, he or she won't come back. Similarly, if you lose a hero, you won't be able to rehire him or her.

Thus, the map feels more like a tug o' war than most. At any given moment, if the enemy manages to out maneuver  you and defeat one of your heroes, you might as well restart the map. Every defeat gives the enemy huge bonuses.

Also to Kilgor's dismay, there's a strict time limit. If Kilgor can't defeat Boragus within 3 months, the game is over. Boragus doesn't have a super army as you might expect. Instead, the challenge comes from chasing the three generals around the map before time runs out.

For me, the Town Portal from the previous map became invaluable.

Without Town Portal, I imagine the map would be even more challenging. I noticed there is a secret backdoor into Boragus' castle (at the northeastern corner of the map).  However, passing the quest gate requires that you defeat some water elementals somewhere on the map. I was never able to track them down but did notice a lone boat in one of the lakes. I guess I could probably summon the boat somewhere else. In any case, I didn't have time to test this method as the enemy generals relentlessly assaulted my Strongholds.

After Kilgor defeated Crag Hack (one of the generals) and took his shackles of war (which prevent enemies from retreating or surrendering), the rest of the generals fell over easily. I stormed Boragus' final castle very close to the deadline.

After the terrifying battles against the generals, Boragus was a bit of a let down.

In any case, Kilgor is now the king of the barbarians. Poor Winston is now just a head on a pillow.

Clan War

Ouch. What a painful map. It took me about 5 hours to finally finish this scenario, most of which was conducted in quick combat mode to reduce the monotony. In Clan War, Kilgor and three of his strongest allies have been transplanted to a huge battle arena to defend House Kilgor against three rival clans. If Kilgor can emerge victorious, he can move on to challenge Winston Boragus for the throne.

The intro speech adds little to the storyline. Yes, we know Kilgor loves power and hates mercy. Pretty typical Conan-esque barbarian dialog. Yadda yadda.

The most challenging thing about this scenario is you start with four heroes and all four must survive. Realistically speaking, this means you'll have to split up your army between four heroes to keep each of them strong enough to survive an enemy attack. Otherwise, you have to hide three of them in a corner somewhere and babysit them so they don't accidentally get ambushed. If any of the starting heroes lose a battle (retreat, surrender, defeat) the game is over. I got pretty tired of seeing the executioner cinematic.

Kilgor is currently a Level 20 Barbarian. My other three heroes are Gird the Battle Mage, Oris the Battle Mage (whose power is Eagle Eye... yuck) and Gurnisson the Barbarian (a Ballista expert). They were carried over from the previous map and are significantly weaker than Kilgor. Gurnisson still lacks a spellbook, but can now buy one from the Mage Guild.

Immediately north of House Kilgor, I found three dragon fly hives clustered together. By visiting these sites and fighting a fairly small group of dragon flies, I obtained wyverns. This made it easier for me to expand without constantly losing troops.

The map is divided from the northwestern corner to the southeastern edge and the northeastern edge to the southwestern edge by impassable mountains (like an X). There are garrisons guarded by tough creatures. At the center of the map is a volcanic area with fire elemental confluxes and cursed terrain. The three enemy heroes tend to congregate in the middle and fight one another. Each "quadrant" in the map has nearly identical amenities. For example, each quadrant has dragon fly hives.

Navigating the map is a bit of a nightmare because of the need to keep all heroes alive and lack of high level spells that let you move about the map (e.g. Fly, Water Walk, Town Portal, etc.). There are four main ways to move about the map.

Monoliths: They start off blocked off with a powerful creature. Later, they become annoying backdoors for the enemy heroes to steal Strongholds from under your nose.

Volcanic Area: The easiest way to cross over to another quadrant is to just walk to the volcanic area in the middle of the map. Unfortunately, if you try to do that the enemy will use the liths to take your Stronghold.

Garrison: There are garrisons locations between mountains. They are initially guarded by high level creatures. Even after you retake the garrison, the enemy AI knows to wait for you to cross the garrison before hungrily pursuing your Stronghold.

Whirlpool: The final and worst option is to build a boat in one of the corners of the map and enter the whirlpool. You not only lose a lot of money along the way, but also units. 

The key to this map is to let the other three factions fight and weaken one another. Then, swoop in at the end and kill everybody. However, if one of your enemies ends up killing the other two, they may end up becoming too strong. Unlike other maps, you won't be able to utilize may "hit and run" tactics here. Any retreat will cause you to lose the game. So... you have one shot to win it.

You can recruit secondary heroes, but not at any of the main Strongholds. In each quadrant, there is a secondary Stronghold that must be captured. Only the secondary Strongholds can build taverns.

Thankfully, as the enemies decimate one another, you'll be able to recruit the defeated heroes from the tavern. Most are between Level 15-25. If some enemy heroes retreated or were killed by random stacks of creatures, you can even nab all of their artifacts. I managed to recruit a Level 20 Yog with 17 artifacts once I captured my secondary Stronghold.

In the end, I found this map hard to manage due to the sheer size of it. There's a lot going on and only a handful of heroes at your disposal. Finances are always problematic. Somehow, my last enemy managed to obtain the ability to walk through mountains and I spent a few hours chasing him down. It didn't help that he had a huge army of red dragons.

UPDATE: There is a Dungeon in the middle of the underground layer of the map. When I built up the Mage Guild to Level 5, I was pleasantly surprised to find the Town Portal spell! That certainly made jumping between my Strongholds easier.

Happy Holidays 2012

Happy holidays! Another year has come and gone. Yes, this blog is still on "sleep mode" while I finish my masters program at Berkeley. That means I don't have a set posting schedule.

This winter break, unlike last year, I have no plans to travel outside the United States. Instead, I'm just going to stay at home and play games. So far, I've played a lot of Civilization IV and League of Legends.

I also reinstalled Heroes VI and have been toying with it. I'm still not very happy with the way the game designers simplified the gameplay. There are simply too few resources, too few factions, too few maps, and too few creatures. I've finished both map packs (Danse Macabre and Pirates of the Savage Sea) and found them to be very well-written. However, never has it been more apparent that Heroes VI needs more interesting neutral creatures. 80-90% of the enemies on those maps are "elementals!"

Hopefully I can get around to finishing the Armageddon's Blade scenarios I've been meaning to write for the last year. I believe I still have to finish the Festival of Life (FoL).

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!

-Kevin

Taming Of The Wild

In Taming of the Wild, the second map in the Festival of Life campaign, Kilgor the barbarian must conquer the wasteland with three allies. This entails clearing the map of all enemy stacks without losing a single battle. If any Kilgor or any of his allies fall in battle, it's game over.

As with the previous map, there are no computer controlled enemy heroes here. You are free to build your stronghold as you please. Because there are no castles to invade or heroes to battle, it makes no sense to learn skills such as Ballistics or Eagle Eye.

Kilgor retains his stats from the previous map. I'm glad I took extra time to run around the previous map and locate all of the stat enhancers because Kilgor doesn't start with a very large army. However, the map is designed in such a way that Kilgor has to open the way for his three allies, who are dispersed in the far corners of the map and blocked by border guards.

Despite these meager beginnings, the map is filled with gold and crystals, the two resources most essential to barbarian town-building.

Kilgor starts in the center of the map next to the stronghold. There is a subterranean entrance nearby which leads to a cavern filled with medusae and a powerful stack of black dragons. Kilgor's starting area is populated by hostile goblins, which are easy to kill but time-consuming to engage.

There are three passageways from the stronghold to the outer ring of mountains. They are guarded by stacks of green dragons. In this outer ring, Kilgor will find the keymaster tents needed to free his companions. However, these tents are guarded by dangerous foes like cyclopses and manticores.

Kilgor's companions are (probably) randomized. However, in my playthrough, I ended up with Gurnisson in the north, Gird in the southwest, and Oris in the southeast. I stupidly taught Gurnisson the wisdom skill even though he did not have a spellbook and would not have any way to obtain one until significantly later.

However, Gurnisson had the easiest time clearing out his sector of the map as it was populated with soft-skinned wolf riders. The southeast is a dirt land filled with griffins and a boat. Oris had the most difficult time. The griffins very quickly swarm Oris' cyclopes. The southwest is a swamp filled with serpent flies. Gird started with a few behemoths who shredded the serpent flies like a hot knife through butter. However, the trouble with swamps is it takes forever to travel anywhere.

It took about a month before Kilgor finally reached the tents, reunited with his companions, pooled their resources, and obliterated all life in the area.

Razor Claw

In Razor Claw, Kilgor must slaw the Ancient Behemoth 'Razor Claw' and his family. The beasts live in an underground cave at the northeastern corner of the map. Kilgor begins at the northwestern corner of the map with no strongholds and 7 days to capture one.

Of the three starting bonuses, I chose the cyclopses. Although the Behemoth is awfully strong, I favor ranged units.

Thankfully, there are no enemy heroes to contend with on this map, just scattered creeps. None of the strongholds can upgrade their Mage Guilds beyond Level 3 or build Behemoth Crags. Kilgor is also limited to the 12th level. After conquering my second stronghold, my Kilgor reached his ceiling. So I spent the rest of the map avoiding combat and hunting down stat-enhancing structures like the arena or mercenary camp.

Despite the abundance of big open lands and passageways, may strong creature stacks guard chockpoints such that the map is actually horseshoe-shaped. You start in the northwest and conquer your way down along the coast and then eastward along the edge of the mountain. Eventually, your path loops back to the beginning. There's no real need to backtrack on foot because you'll find more than enough creature generators along the way.

Many of the creature stacks you encounter will also offer to join. Keep an eye out for friendly ogre-magi. After you've captured all strongholds, you'll find a portal that brings you back to your original stronghold, should you desire to boost your army strength for the final encounter. At this point, assuming you've been building new structures every turn, you should be able to train cyclopses and thunderbirds.

There's a boat south of the first stronghold with a sign informing you that it belongs to Yog. As you may recall, Yog is the half-genie turned barbarian who has made appearances throughout the series. I found this little reference quite nice. If you actually steal Yog's boat, you'll come across a whirlpool which takes you to the Golden Bow. This artifact will remove all ranged penalties and make killing Razor Claw much easier.

Before you can fight Razor Claw and finish the map, you'll have to battle the souls of the behemoths victims. This just means you fight an army of wights and wraiths. No explanation is ever given as to who raised these guys from the dead or why they never tried to take revenge on the behemoth. I thought it was unnecessarily silly.

Razor Claw and his family are not too dangerous. At this point, I had a large army of cyclopses and ogre magi on hand. After a short battle, I completed the map.

Festival Of Life

It has been a busy school year for me. Let me explain what I've been up to. In addition to completing the first year of my MBA program, I've been searching for a summer internship in San Francisco. Aside from that, I'm working with a company in Korea to figure out marketing strategy for some mobile apps. My life has been so busy that I've hardly had any time for games at all (just an some occasional clicks in CityVille or a match in League of Legends).

Today was the first time since July that I've actually had a moment's rest. That's why I dusted off my old copy of Armageddon's Blade and started the Festival of Life campaign. Well, enough about me.

Festival of Life (or FoL for short) follows the barbarian Kilgor as he seeks to topple Winston Boragus from his throne and take over the barbarian tribes in Krewlod. Those who have played Heroes IV know that Kilgor eventually gets his hands on the Sword of Frost and destroys the planet with Gelu. I don't know the details of how that particular exchange occurs. But I've heard that the Heroes Chronicles chapters flesh it out. In FoL, Kilgor is just a lowly barbarian with big dreams.

Retro Roadtest: Heroes II

Hey Heroes fans! I just wanted to divert your attention to an article at Games On Net about Heroes II. The author decided to fire up his old copy of Heroes II and see how it stood up. Not surprisingly, he concludes: "This is still a seriously addictive game with a reasonable degree of resource management depth and satisfyingly tough turn based combat."

I couldn't agree more. Heroes II may not have been the most balanced game in the series, but the combat was satisfying and the resource management interesting.

Happy Holidays 2011

Happy holidays everyone! As you've no doubt surmised, this blog has been put on hiatus while I study, network, and interview my way through business school. You can read the details on my personal blog.

This winter break, I'm going to travel to Thailand, Philippines, and Singapore. So unfortunately, I won't have an opportunity to complete another campaign. However, I have been toying with Heroes II: The Price of Loyalty in the last few days thanks to GOG.com. Specifically, I've been playing the campaign titled: "The Wizard's Isle."

Wow, what a challenging set of maps! I've pretty much learned to avoid using shooters because the computer AI loves to decimate them with flying units. Ugh, now I'm still stuck on the final map. The red defeated yellow earlier than expected and now the isle is protected by too many black dragons. Oh well, I tried.

Have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

-Kevin

Burning Of Tatalia

The final scenario in the Playing with Fire campaign is Burning of Tatalia. It's a massive jungle map featuring four strong allied enemy factions, a slew of hidden ambushes, maze like architecture, and very tough AI.

The undead Lord Haart has burned his way into the inner jungles of Tatalia. Only Adrienne can save her people from the undead menace.

In the intro cutscene, we finally get a glimpse of the newly resurrected Lord Haart. He looks kind of like the old Lord Haart, but decked out in evil looking armor and sitting in a room filled with bone architecture. What is it about undead lords and their macabre decorations?

I seem to recall that Arthas from Warcraft III had the same problem. Once his mind was corrupted by the Lich King, he started putting skulls all over his armor. Why?

I guess man has always had a fascination with death. My friend Ryan went to Czechoslovakia last year and returned with pictures of a chilling landmark called the Bone Church. Yes, it's a church decorated with bones. Chandeliers... altars... everything. I imagine religious ceremonies there take on an extra layer of spookiness.

If you've been playing along with me, I sincerely hope you managed to level up all of your heroes in the two previous scenarios. If not, you're in for a very long battle.

I found it incredibly important to begin the map with the maximum number of heroes allowed at the highest level possible. That's because I needed them to spread across the map and secure as many fortresses as possible. By doing so, I obtained enough gold to fund the rest of my war effort. If I moved too slow, the enemy would attack my cities and overwhelm my heroes, forcing me to restart the map.

Near the starting area, there is a subterranean gate that will lead the the first necropolis city. Since this necropolis is isolated from the others, the enemy won't try to recapture it until late in the game. So I made sure to capture it as early as possible to use its City Hall and obtain extra gold.

After defeating some bone dragons west of the starting fortress, I gained access to a stone lith. It transported me to an inaccessible jungle area and a lone fortress. I discovered that the enemy rarely goes through the lith to attack this hidden fortress. I decided to build my Capitol here to avoid the pain of continually shelling out 10,000 gold to rebuild it later.

I also noticed that there were many red garrisons on the map with allied troops. Luckily, the troops can actually be taken out of the garrisons and placed in your army. So I immediately headed toward the garrisons to bolster my army.

If you leave the troops in the garrison, they'll quickly be defeated. But if you put them in your army, their fighting ability can double/triple/quadruple thanks to the combat bonuses granted by your high level heroes. Unfortunately, when I was playing, the enemy did managed to overtake some of the garrisons before I could rescue them.

In previous maps, I complained that there was no way to learn Town Portal. As a result, scenarios dragged on longer than necessary. This map finally grants you the spell. However, you can only obtain it by completing a short quest.

In the middle of the map, near the shore, there is a seer hut requesting the Armor of Wonder. I obtained the artifact (quite accidentally) by fighting the hydras next door. The seer then traded me the Tome of Earth Magic for the Armor of Wonder.

With the Tome of Earth Magic on hand, I was now able to cast every Earth Magic spell in the game, including Town Portal. I can't tell you how great this made me feel.

I gave the artifact to Adrienne and appointed her my official town defender. The other benefit of Town Portal is that it allowed Adrienne to escape defeat if Lord Haart or another high level enemy hero came knocking on the door. Discretion is the better part of valor, especially when the scenario is programmed to end in defeat if Adrienne ever runs, surrenders, or falls in combat.

There are many ambushes on the map, often featuring nasty configurations of bone dragons and vampires. If you're not careful, a powerful hero can be instantly wiped out, just for exploring!

Thankfully, not all scripted events work in the enemy's favor. Eventually, Tatalia will rise up and flock to Adrienne's aid, populating your key cities with fresh recruits. Just make sure Lord Haart doesn't take them before you do.

Lord Haart flies the blue banner and is pretty easy to spot. He's the one with the massive army of death. If this were Heroes V, he would leave a huge, fiery trail wherever he went.

I encountered him several times on the map. Every time, he swarmed me with summoned elementals and then retreated. However, I finally defeated him in the end by capturing all of his cities so he had no place to run.

All in all, I found this map incredibly infuriating. The enemy heroes are fast and coordinated. They combine their forces and attack relentlessly. It's important to understand the layout of the map and target the enemy one color at a time, rather than rushing foolishly into battle.

The Tome of Earth Magic is crucial for the defense of cities. Without it, the map is nearly impossible.

I also found it critical to leave secondary heroes near subterranean gates to serve as 'sentries.' Their job was to prevent stragglers from secretly capturing your cities. Because most of your cities are wide open (meaning they are situated next to a gate or ocean) it's very easy for a far away enemy to suddenly recapture them.

That being said, the map is the ultimate test of micromanagement and multitasking ability. If you complete this scenario, you can pretty much complete anything else the game throws at you. It doesn't get any tougher than this.

March Of The Undead

March of the Undead is a huge pain in the ass. The scenario requires you to flag every creature generator within a specific number of months. Unfortunately, there are literally hundreds of creature generators spread out across two levels of an extra-large map.

The time limit isn't really a problem. However, the abundance of half-obscured dwellings is compounded by a near useless minimap on an extra-large map size. Enjoy spending weeks searching the map Where's Waldo-style for elusive unflagged dwellings. I hated every moment of it.

The scenario also makes you wish your heroes had the ability to quickly move from city to city. Eight heroes is not enough to put together an effective offense/defense strategy on a map of this size. Therefore, I often had to resort to guerrilla tactics to survive. The computer was relentless in its attack and sent heroes with huge armies at my doorstep. The only solution in those cases was to run from battle and sacrifice a city in hopes of recapturing it later.

I suppose it's possible to play the scenario in such a way that I flagged dwellings without first destroying the enemy team. But I never had the guts to do it. I wonder if that's how the map designer intended the map to be played? Perhaps the map was like a puzzle that requires finesse and I've been trying to solve it by brute force all along?

In any case, I'll talk about my 'brute force' method. The key to surviving this map appears to be 'speed.' If you dawdle too long, the enemy will overwhelm your cities and destroy your heroes.

I actually had to replay this map after getting my butt kicked the first time around. On my second playthrough, I sent two heroes (including Adrienne) immediately to the east to capture the three abandoned Fortress cities (Team A). The first time around, I wasted time and failed to capture the second and third Fortresses. That was my downfall.

The other two heroes (Team B) ventured north to flag dwellings and recruit creatures. The purpose of Team B was to keep the enemy busy via cat and mouse games so that I could upgrade my Fortress cities.

There is a purple border guard north of the southeastern Fortress city. You should never allow this border to be opened without a fight. The border guard is the only thing protecting your cities from a quick invasion at the hands of three high level death knights with moderate to large sized armies.

In fact, the purple border guard is so critical that the enemy will try to reach the purple tent by sea and open the border guard for itself! Prevent this from happening as long as possible. Once the flood gates are open, the map difficulty ramps up significantly.

I also want to mention that there are quest huts littered across the map. They grant rewards for vanquishing certain non-undead creatures on the map (e.g. diamond golems, fire elementals, and water elementals). The rewards aren't that great. Also, the required battles are taxing on your heroes' armies and spell points. I skipped the side-quests entirely.

One of the most time consuming aspects of this map is exploring the entirety of the underworld and flagging the dwellings within. Many of these creature dwellings belong to higher level creatures such as hydras and gorgons and require tedious battles to capture. I recommend enabling Quick Combat in the options to skip through the monotony.

After you've explored most of the map and destroyed the enemy, be sure take a look at the overall map layout. Pretty cool huh? According to the story, Lord Haart's undead company burned its way through Tatalia. However, as Adrienne mentions early in the scenario, the swamps are resilient and have already begun to regenerate.

This is reflected in the map's visual design. You can trace Lord Haart's path of destruction (dirt terrain) from the southwest corner to the northeast. However, the dirt is slowly being reintegrated into the swamps.

I also think the campaign introduces us to its villain in a very effective manner. First we only hear rumblings of a stirring evil. Then, we start to see the destruction that the villain has left behind. Finally, we engage the villain on the field of battle in a no-holds barred brawl. I only wish the Armageddon's Blade campaign had followed this progression and given us a glorious and epic final battle against Lucifer Kreegan.

My only complaint about Adrienne's campaign is that the villain lacks a truly compelling reason for invading Tatalia. (Other than the fact that he's a death knight who wants to destroy life.) The point is, the campaign would feel more important to the overall lore of Antagarich if Tatalia had something important that Lord Haart wanted... rather than it just acting as a source of fresh corpses.

Nevertheless, getting closure to Lord Haart's character arc is better than no closure at all. And in terms of the Heroes series, there are certainly far worse examples of storytelling.

Stay tuned for the final scenario.

Farming Towns

The first scenario in Adrienne's campaign is called Farming Towns. After a grim introductory cutscene swarming with festering undead, our brooding heroine is thrown right into the action.

I briefly mentioned in my previous post that the maps in the Playing With Fire campaign are extra large. As a result of this, it takes an eternity for your hero to explore everything. The abundance of swampland makes exploration extra painful because hero movement diminishes until you obtain Expert Pathfinding.

The scenario takes place at the border of Erathia and Tatalia. Therefore, the map is appropriately divided between swampland (western half of the map) and grassland (eastern half of the map). Three garrisons separate Erathia from Tatalia, all reinforced by moderate undead regiments. The enemy consists of Necropolis heroes squatting in Fortresses. Tamika is usually their leader.

Adrienne begins the scenario in the lower right corner of the map and within a day's walk of town. The first step is to upgrade the town into a Castle.

The large map size means there are many cities to capture and defend. In total, there are four Castles and four Fortresses. But while you'll mostly be utilizing Castle creatures in this scenario, you shouldn't hire any clerics and knights to lead them.

The best hero choices are actually Fortress (witch/beastmaster) and Necropolis (necromancer/death knight). That's because the scenario allows you to bring three of Adrienne's strongest allies with her to the next scenario. Castle heroes are significantly less useful in Map 2 and 3 because you won't hire a single Castle unit. Map 2 is all-Fortress. Map 3 features a mix of Fortress and Necropolis cities.

I ended up hiring two beastmasters and one witch to have a balanced (2 might, 2 magic) team. I like balance.

In the northeast corner of the map, there's a vampire infestation. Clearing this area granted my hero access to several stat enhancers. I also rescued a hero named Sir Michael (who has the same portrait as Christian) from a prison near the 'boss' vampires. However, I soon discovered that Sir Michael was useless. So I elected to move him to a nearby Castle and appointed him commander of the garrison.

Why was Sir Michael useless, despite starting at level 11? For starters, he is completely maxed out on useless skills. He cannot learn Wisdom (and cannot learn the best spells in the game) and lacks Logistics and Pathfinding (making him a liability in swampland).

Since heroes are capped at the 12th level, it's clear that the map designer inserted Sir Michael into the scenario to artificially increase the campaign's difficulty. What seems like a reward is actually a terrible punishment. However, Sir Michael starts at level 11. This means you must not let him level up.

If you allow your other heroes to reach level 12, they will follow Adrienne to the next scenario in place of Sir Michael. Engineering this feat will require you spread the wealth of experience around all of your heroes. Also, don't approach any Trees of Knowledge (+1 level) with low level heroes. Wait until your heroes are past level 10 or so to enjoy a nice compounding effect.

The only reason to break Sir Michael out of prison is to make sure the enemy doesn't rescue him first.

Since the next two maps are incredibly long, difficult, and time limited, I wanted to make sure that I completely maxed out my four main heroes' stats. There are numerous mercenary camps, marletto towers, and schools of magic to be found on the map. But one stat enhancer that is often overlooked is the Cage of Warlords structure that can be found inside captured Fortresses. Don't forget it.

Also, remember that it's not necessary to defeat all enemies to complete the scenario. All you need to do is flag every creature dwelling. At one point, I accidentally flagged all of the dwellings and ended the game. I had to reload an earlier save to give my heroes more time to level up and build their stats.

I had hoped to learn Town Portal to make the next scenario easier. However, neither the Fortress nor the Castle can upgrade their mage guilds to level 5. Bummer.

One interesting observation about this map is that every enemy stack is undead. I didn't notice this the first time around, but it's actually kind of cool.

A New Schedule

Hello readers. Just wanted to give a quick update on my situation. I am currently enrolled in a two-year MBA program. Classes start on August 15. Therefore, I won't be able to play Heroes III as much as I have in the past. Classwork, networking, and career search trumps retro gaming. However, the blog will continue to live on.

In the meantime, if you're interested in my business school experience, read this.

Playing With Fire

Thanks for everyone's input.

I'll finish the AB campaigns before jumping to a different game. Since the remaining campaigns can be played in any order, I'm going to start with Playing with Fire.

Adrienne is one of the most interesting, yet tragically underdeveloped, characters in AB. She is a witch from Tatalia who loves fire. As you can imagine, this doesn't go over well in Tatalia, which is a land of swamps and jungles. In Tatalia, nobody is allowed to practice fire magic because it can basically destroy everything the Tatalians know and love. Adrienne, unperturbed by this minor detail, decides that she must travel all the way to Eeofol to learn fire magic from the Kreegans. Yes, the same Kreegans that destroy worlds. To nobody's surprise, the Tatalians decide to treat their resident crazy fire witch like public enemy number one.

In Playing with Fire, Adrienne discovers that someone or something is burning down forests in Tatalia. Unfortunately, the Tatalians are convinced that the crazy fire witch squatting on their lands is responsible. Adrienne must clear her name and (maybe) retain the trust of her people.

You might be wondering why people hate this campaign. I mean, it sounds really interesting right? Everybody loves a good mystery. Throwing in a sexy witch doesn't hurt either. Sadly, the gameplay is a huge pain in the ass.

How bad is it?

Annoying sneak attacks from merciless AI

Swamp terrain slows movement to a crawl

Poorly placed warp gates, subterranean gates make cities hard to defend

Humongous maps take an eternity to explore

Tedious victory conditions (e.g. flagging all mines)

No Town Portal (until the end of the final scenario)

I'll explain more in upcoming blog posts. For now, I'm going to jump in and replay the campaign.

Cast And Characters Of Armageddon's Blade

One of the differences between Armageddon's Blade and its prequel Restoration of Erathia is the large cast of characters. Some are playable. Others appear in the background. Below are some of the notes I took while trying to keep track of them all.

Heroes:

Catherine Ironfist - Queen of Erathia and wife of Roland Ironfist of Enroth. She invades the Kreegan nation of Eeofol despite opposition from the Erathian people.

Roland Ironfist - Protagonist of Heroes II and husband of Catherine. Roland was abducted by the Kreegans and imprisoned for many years. He was rescued by adventurers in Might & Magic VII. Roland serves as Catherine's general and suffers PTSD from his captivity. He is overzealous in his quest to destroy Eeofol.

Gen. Kendal - Morgan Kendal served as regent of Erathia after the death of Catherine's father. After Catherine gives up her throne to concentrate on the war, Kendall is tasked with electing the next king.

Gelu - A half-elf captain of Erathia's Forest Guard and Gen. Kendal's foster son. He leads guerilla attacks against Eeofol's northern border and is secretly funded by AvLee and Erathia. Gelu's past is fleshed out in the second expansion: Shadow of Death. The Kreegans call him "Devil's Bane."

Ciele the Waverider - A conflux hero representing the plane of water. She attempts to prevent Xeron from obtaining Armageddon's Blade and ultimately allies herself with Catherine's army.

Erdamon the Earthshaper - A conflux hero representing the plane of earth. He also fails to prevent Xeron from obtaining Armageddon's Blade and grants his army to Catherine.

Fiur the Flamewalker - A conflux hero representing the plane of fire. He allies himself with Catherine.

Tamar the Wanderer - A conflux hero representing the plane of air. Unlike the others, he does not participate in the war. Instead, he warns Catherine about Roland's path toward the darkness and cautions against the misuse of Armageddon's Blade.

Judge Fairweather - A wise sage whom Gelu consults regarding the identity and tactics of the Sons of Erebus.

Villains:

Xenofex - The leader of Eeofol during the Restoration Wars. Xenofex was slain by adventurers in Might & Magic VII. However, he visits Lucifer from beyond the grave and implores him to seek Armageddon's Blade to set the world on fire. While he doesn't physically appear in the game, he is responsible for setting the plot in motion.

Lucifer Kreegan III - King of Eeofol and Xenofex's successor. He commands Eeofol's army from the safety of the capitol city Kreelah and communicates with his minions using a red jewel.

Xeron the Terrible - Lucifer's most trusted general. He is the half-human, half-Kreegan leader of the Sons of Erebus, a paramilitary group loyal to Lucifer. Xeron manages to locate the pieces of Armageddon's Blade and construct the weapon for his master. He has a special feud with Gelu because the latter killed Xeron's mother.

Xex - Xeron's childhood friend and trusted general. Xex runs many errands for Xeron throughout the story but is ultimately slain by halflings.

Judge Sleen - A master sage and arcane historian who betrays Erathia (under coercion). He teaches Xeron about the conflux heroes, reveals the pieces of Armageddon's Blade, and stalls Catherine's invasion after being captured. He is ultimately sentenced to life in prison for treason.

Neutral:

Wibur Humphrey - He is mentioned briefly in the campaign. Wilbur is the regent of Enroth, ruling in Roland's absence, and plays an important role in Might & Magic VI.

Nicolai Ironfist - The child of Roland and Catherine who lives in Enroth. Catherine and Roland lament that the war has caused them to neglect their son.

Nayestra the Oracle - A gypsy woman who reads Gelu's fortune and sees great potential for evil.

Khazandar - The grand forgesmith Khazandar is the only person in Antagarich with the knowledge to construct Armageddon's Blade. He was an archmage from Bracada who lost his titles for being too mercenary and became an alchemist and weaponsmith. He agreed to support Xeron out of greed and spite but was betrayed and executed.

Other Stuff:

Night of the Shooting Stars - The Kreegans arrived in Antagarich by riding meteor-like spaceships. They drove out the halflings and terraformed the grassy lands of Eeofol into a volcanic wasteland.

Sons of Erebus - A quasi-religious paramilitary group loyal to Lucifer and headed by Xeron. The group is named after Erebus, a dark god worshipped by the Kreegans.

Talon Brigade - Both Catherine and Morgan Kendal started their military careers in the Talon Brigade, an elite unit in the Erathian army. Kendal leads the Talon Brigade to support Roland.

Regnan Pirates - They are briefly mentioned in Return of the King as having buried some treasure near the Great Lake before getting driven out of Erathia by Admiral Magnus Bonn. The pirates make an appearance in Might & Magic VIII.

Tavin's Guerillas - A group of halflings attempting to drive the Kreegans out of Eeofol. They agree to support Catherine during her final assault on Kreelah.

Final Score - Armageddon's Blade

Hey look, guys! I'm a Wyvern Monarch! I guess it means my Heroes III skillz are above average. Yes, I wrote skills with a 'z.'

Ladies and gentlemen, I've completed the Armageddon's Blade campaign! However, one thing still bugs me.

In the final scenario of the AB campaign, Catherine is visited by the elemental lord Tamar. He tells her that Gelu (and only Gelu) must bring the blade to Kreelah and slay Lucifer Kreegan. Only then will the destruction of the world be averted.

Oddly enough, this act actually leads Gelu down a path of no return, leading to the Reckoning. The destruction of Kreelah corrupts Gelu. If Gelu had simply destroyed Armageddon's Blade, King Lucifer would have lost his ability to set the world on fire. Furthermore, Khazandar's death at the hands of Xeron meant there'd be no other individual with the ability to create a duplicate. How did Tamar get everything so wrong?

Perhaps the creature who visited Catherine was not Tamar at all. After all, he never identifies himself. Catherine only assumes he is Tamar.

What if... the person who visited Catherine was actually the ghost of Xenofex (the same ghost who convinced Lucifer to seek Armageddon's Blade at the beginning of the game). What if... Xenofex sensed that Eeofol had lost the war and wanted to manipulate Catherine into fulfilling his desire?

Here's the original text:

In the darkest hours before dawn, Catherine is awoken by a soft wind blowing across her body, caressing it like Roland often had, pleasant and loving. She turns, expecting to see her loving husband there with her, when she sees a figure in azure robes trimmed in silver runic writing. The figure simply stands there, not saying a word.

"Greetings Tamar. What are you doing here? What visions have you come to warn me about now?" Catherine asks, quite annoyed at the fact it is not Roland.

"I have come to impart some wisdom to you, Queen of Enroth," Tamar says in that soft whisper of a voice. "The pale warrior often called Devil's Bane I have foreseen to be of great import in your endeavor. He alone is the key to victory here. You must see he is given the Blade and sent to Kreelah to face King Lucifer. He has a destiny to fulfill that no one must be allowed to interfere with, for if he is to fall, everything shall turn to chaos. Oceans will boil, the ground shall swallow entire cities, and everyone will die a horrifying death. I do not think that you would want this possibility to come to pass, am I wrong?"

Catherine stares at the shadow shrouded face of this Elemental Lord and sighs, "No, of course not."

"As I suspected. So, rest now, Catherine Ironfist, for the days ahead shall be plagued by troubles and filled with glorious victories. You shall prevail if you trust your heart and relax your mind. Heart is the one thing the devils cannot crush; use it as your most prominent weapon. Good luck. I pray you will be well, as I do for those under your command." With that, Tamar vanishes as if he had never come, as if he were a mere dream. Exhausted and confused somewhat, Catherine goes back to sleep, her task set before her. Gelu is the one who must bear the Blade to Kreelah and kill King Lucifer. It seems a task easier said than done.

I'd be curious to get people's thoughts on this theory.

What campaign should I tackle next? Should I start a different campaign in the AB expansion? If so, which one?

Alternatively, I can abandon the game and skip to the second Heroes III expansion: Shadow of Death? Let me know in the comments below.

Oblivion's Edge

At last... we come to Oblivion's Edge, the final scenario in the Armageddon's Blade campaign.

After the defeat of Xeron, Lucifer Kreegan summons the overlords of Nighon to reinforce his armies. Sensing an opportunity to defeat the Kreegan armies once and for all, Catherine and her party fights their way into Kreelah, the capitol of Eeofol. The catch? She has 60 days to do so.

The scenario itself isn't very difficult. Eeofol's heroes send weak armies against your pre-built conflux towns. I decided to use Catherine purely as a defensive hero, teleporting her from town to town to gather troops and fight off any would-be invaders.

The city of Kreelah is very heavily guarded by Xeron's army and further protected by a magic garrison that prevents your hero from casting spells.

Like any good 'final scenario,' this map wraps up all of the loose plot points from previous maps.

Remember the halfling resistance movement? This map is littered with halfling huts, symbolizing the resurgence of the little critters. The first enemy camp that Gelu encounters on the map is a band of halflings seeking greater glory. The little guys are terrible in battle, but I admire their valor.

Later in the scenario, the halflings do manage to kill Xex. So all is well.

Also, do you remember the dark dreams that Gelu had? This time, he dreams that he is a conquering king who has united the nations of Antagarich under his iron rule. He also sees a beautiful woman with steel hair guiding his actions. I imagine she is the personification of Armageddon's Blade? I guess Armageddon's Blade is kind of like Sauron's ring in Lord of the Rings. It grants the wielder the power of domination but also corrupts its master.

While Gelu slowly descends into madness, Roland Ironfist has a spiritual awakening. Throughout this campaign, good king Roland has been portrayed as an angsty curmudgeon battling post-traumatic stress disorder.

One night, Roland is visited by the ghost of Khazandar. The ghost begs for Roland's forgiveness and also implores the king to change his ways before his soul is corrupted forever. We also learn why Khazandar created Armageddon's Blade. The grand forgemaster had been 'taken advantage of' by many people in his past. So when Xeron approached him with the request, Khazandar agreed to create the blade to spite all the people who had ruined his life. Seems a bit extreme to me.

Soon after, Roland sees a vision of his father shaking his head in disapproval. Lord Ironfist of Enroth is clearly unhappy that his son has resorted to genocide. This vision causes Roland to realize that he is becoming twisted and evil like his brother Archibald. Presumably, Roland changes his ways.

Afterwards, Roland and Catherine say 'screw it' and completely wipe out the Kreegan race from Antagarich.

The final battle takes place at the gates of Kreelah. Xeron has a tendency to use Town Portal whenever a hero gets close to Kreelah, so 9 times out of 10, he will lead the garrison army.

Truth be told, I wish NWC had bothered to create a unique Lucifer Kreegan hero for the final battle. We hear so much about evil King Lucifer throughout the campaign. He witness his manipulation behind the scenes. It would have been awesome to finally face him in the end and demolish his army. Instead, Gelu fights Lucifer's lackey and then kills him 'off screen.'

Xeron's favorite attack is Expert Implosion, which deals massive damage to a single creature stack. In two rounds, Xeron completely decimated my sharpshooters.

My original plan was to repeatedly cast Armageddon. However, I discovered that it was more important to keep my army alive. Thus, I reverted to the strategy of repeatedly casting Resurrection on my fallen sharpshooters.

In the end, great losses were suffered on both sides. But Xeron was defeated once and for all!

Of course, Xeron and Lucifer get the last laugh. Although Lucifer is slain at the hands of Gelu, the half-elf becomes corrupted by Armageddon's Blade and runs away with it. This ultimately leads to the fiery destruction of the world. So you see... Lucifer's dream was realized in the end.

What's Catherine's response to Gelu running away with the HORRIBLE EVIL SWORD THAT CAN DESTROY THE WORLD? She goes home to Enroth with Roland. Out of sight, out of mind.

...and they all lived happily ever after!

To Kill A Hero

Here we go! The final showdown between Gelu and Xeron! It all comes down to this. In To Kill A Hero, Gelu, Roland, and Catherine must lead the remaining conflux armies into the heart of Eeofol and defeat Xeron once and for all!

It's a very straightforward scenario. You don't need to capture any towns or unlock any border guards. Destroy Xeron's army and victory is yours!

Catherine and Roland begin the scenario in the southwestern corner of the map. Gelu starts in the northeastern corner. You can initiate a pincer attack on the poor Eeofol army.

Xeron is a very high level hero with a powerful army. The Armageddon's Blade artifact allows him to cast the expert level Armageddon spell without damaging his own troops. Thankfully, the enemy AI doesn't cast the spell every turn.

Xeron can be found guarding the inferno city in the center of the map. He seldom ventures outside of the garrisoned area. On the downside, you won't be able to capture the last inferno and wait for Xeron to abandon his army. However, it also means Xeron won't harass your towns with his overpowered artifact. You'll be able to capture all of the surrounding infernos without fear of retaliation.

How difficult you find this scenario depends on how much you prepared your heroes in earlier scenarios. If you spent a lot of time visiting stat modifiers and learning spells such as Town Portal, Resurrection, and Fly, the scenario will be easy to complete. If not, prepare for a long, painful adventure.

My final battle with Xeron was rather repetitive. I sent phoenixes to attack Xeron's melee stacks and then repeatedly cast Resurrection. Meanwhile, my sharpshooters slowly chipped away at Xeron's arch-devils and pit lords.

Xeron and the Sons of Erebus have been defeated! Armageddon's Blade has been captured! Peace has been restored! That's the end of the campaign, right?

What's this? There's still one more map. Hmm... I wonder what else Lucifer Kreegan has up his sleeve.