Part 7

Update 7
Day 18

After consulting with the thread followers, Kilburn cancels his appointment with the Gargoyles. We had a 2-1 vote to keep them alive. So my all natural wall against the enemy remains standing.


Instead he turns to the nomads. This wasn't necessarily voted for, but I want to kill something.

Day 19

Blue “shows” up. All I can see is that they have a town named after Alamar. Interesting naming choice.

Arturius moves back to home base and Kilburn…


Meets the nomads. I immediately start off with bless on my cavalry.


“What are you doing to my horse?!”


Nomads are fast, only my Cavalry have the same speed, so after my initial attack they gang up on the only thing they can reach and they subsequently kill one of my cavalry. This brings them into range of my other units.
Since they’re neutral units and I don't expect to ever have them under my control (like with the Rogues ), let’s talk nomads.

Nomads. They're the neutral level 3 unit. If you can find the tent dwelling on the map (you've already seen it in a screenshot in previous updates, I just didn't point it out) you can recruit them for 200 gold. They're pretty good thanks to their great speed. I don't think I've ever recruited them though. They really want to be blessed, which I´m not going to do for them.


“MY LEG!!”


My peasants protect the front of my archers, hopefully with their lives. Meanwhile my cavalry moves up, I use the fact that the nomads are 2 hex creatures to my advantage. I keep my cavalry one hex before the backline still allowing them to attack, but prohibiting the nomads from attacking my archers.


“HASSAN CHOP!”


Peasant kill count: 14.


About par for the course. I could’ve waited a round, and let them come over getting an extra hit from my archers. But I would’ve always lost a cavalry since three enemy units could’ve reached them. In addition it would’ve greatly diminished my maneuverability since all (large) enemy units would’ve been on top of us.


And we’ve found a wagon camp. That’s nice if we want to recruit more rogues.

Day 20
Blue popped into view and grabbed a sulfur mine near some ogres. Arturius returns home to buy units in the new week.


Kilburn finds a statue that sends his morale into overdrive.


He also finds yellow and a shrine with a spell.

Day 21

Week of the Cyclops. New units for everyone and only three days to go before I can upgrade my castle.
We also saw yellow bolt by our hero.


Does this mean I have to fight ghosts again?


I can't believe the utility I'm getting out of this spell. Anyway, despite the colour looking less like yellow and more like orange, I at least know now that they are close by.


Kilburn ignores the weak enemy. Considering I’m much stronger I don’t expect the computer to attack and I don’t want to attack her only to get lightning bolted.


Troyan visits the windmill.


Ector wants to hang out with rogues.

Arturius buys all the units he can.

Day 22

That is a nice number. I love being rich. Ector then leaves to get the other free units.


The yellow hero runs away and we gang stalk her. Show me your home.
Troyan returns home.

Day 23

A quick sip at a fountain.


And there it is. Now I need to build a thieves guild or attack blind.

Tomorrow I finally upgrade my castle.

Day 24

Yellows other hero shows up and he looks strong.


I'm doing all this on a whim, I'm usually a very cautious player which tends to be my undoing. So what could possibly go wrong when I don't do that.


Holy shit that fountain works great. We already have a hole! (Luck has no effect on the catapult)


This will end well.


A curse upon you!


The horses duke it out.


But the swordsmen want some of that action.


The highest morale level is called Blood!


The unicorns win, striking a heavy blow to humanity everywhere. But they’re using radio waves. That’s like cheating right?


Attack!


Blood morale is pretty great.


It’s the thought that counts right?


Good luck on the retaliation.


He’s in the zone!


He’s a runaway train!


And the last hit belongs to the swordsmen and after all that work they deserve it. Hopefully this town has some units to buy because otherwise this could be the shortest occupation of all time. Now, looking back it occurs to me that things could've ended quite badly had walls the not come down immediately.


Attack +1 for Kilburn.


Welcome to Necropolis!

This does shed new light on the Sorceress town becoming the Preserve in Heroes4.


Plenty of units!


Plenty of spells.


Yes please and can I order a second one while I’m at it? And with that this town is complete except for a shipyard and a final mage guild level. So how about a full size gif?

Looks nice doesn’t it? I never expected a Necropolis to look this nice.
Now add some music and it becomes even better.


Kilburn looks pretty pleased with himself. It may be related by me spending so much money that I have to wait until tomorrow to update my other town. I finally had the wood!

Ector picks up the last free units and Arturius moves to the center of my land.

Day 25
Yellow doesn’t know what to do. The warlock hero is now running to the wagon camp, so Ector runs away.

Gem, another hero shows up near my natural barriers. Leaving them standing was a great decision.
Gem by the way is another well known hero. She's one of the characters the shadow of death expansion for Heroes3 focusses on and for some reason according to the backstory she has/had a fountain of youth.
Her Heroes1/2 portrait always remind me of Xena's traveling companion Gabrielle.


I finally make a castle.


Arturius prepares to meet the warlock head on!


And she’s still here as well.


We blind the druids and shoot the sprites.


Phoenix inferno!

So let’s talk Phoenix!

For a rather expensive 1.500 gold + 1 mercury you get my favorite unit. The phoenix. I just love the design on this thing and it improves to become possibly the most beautiful unit in the Heroes franchise in Heroes2. I was not amused when I found out they had removed them from Heroes3 and my mood didn't improve much when I found out they crapped out a horrible redesign for the expansion. You can't tell me with a straight face that this looks good:

Anyway, the second strongest unit in the game has half the HP of the strongest unit, doesn't take hits quite as well and does lower maximum damage. It does come with its very own two space attack. However it does win in speed and you can cast spells on it. Bless the phoenix to maximize its damage before the enemy lightning bolts it. At least you get to move first thanks to being fast. Did I mention the design?
Interestingly, despite the Phoenix being a symbol of reincarnation it wasn't until Heroes3 that it received an ability that actually does that.


I should’ve seen that coming. I knew they had that spell.


Let me dry you off.


Also, notice the dwarves moved and their amount. There were 9 at the beginning of the battle and they already weathered the storm.

200 gold gets you the level 2 unit of the sorceress town and unlike what Gimli tells us, dwarfs are not natural born sprinters. Still, they bring solid stats and an interesting ability. They have a 25% chance of resisting magic making them a very unattractive magic target. They didn’t do that here, but fact that I only lost 2 of them proves their hardiness. I don’t know why, but they always seem to last much longer than they should be able to. For that reason I like putting them in the garrison and often leave them at home electing to bring the faster sprites instead. Which is also the reason why I'm already putting this here. They may never get another chance to shine.


Anyway, in that previous screenshot the dwarves of the enemy were obliterated by spiritual lasers. Kilburn gets a +1 in spell power for his trouble.

End turn.


Day 26

So much for my defenses. I’m not even sure if the computer had any losses.


And the second one is also close by. I’m rather reluctant to fight them. I’m afraid that the warlock will cast storm and decimate my army before I can take on the other one.


Go get him Arturius! So this is the plan my Cavalry will attack the centaurs. My archers will block the spiritual lasers with their spleen. My rogues will run forward. My archers will hit the Sprites lightning with their face. My swordsmen will pull the wings out of those sprites and the pikemen will wander around aimlessly.
The enemy has a whole 1 rogue that I can ignore. Also, something with peasants.


Yeah, the plan is working.


That’s not your face!


Forget the plan, charge!


There goes the cavalry. (only one actually)


We’ll attack their biggest weakness.


The loss of the peasants was such a big blow to their strategy that he fled. This means that he had artifacts…which I will probably never see again.

Happy with the victory Arturius parks himself in Gem’s way.


Meanwhile Troyan builds her home. Killburn flags a second sawmill. Hurrah, our problems getting wood are finally over.

Day 27

Get back here!

Kilburn finds a piece of map.

Tomorrow is a new week, so Troyan digs a well. Back in our knight castle I build a mage guild level 2. We need more magic on this end of the map.


A new spell. View artifacts shows you a map with all the artifacts highlighted. No, it doesn´t show the ultimate artifact.


Ector returns home, buys a spellbook and demonstrates view artifacts. The only thing of interest is that cluster in the middle.

Day 28

Extra archers. How nice.


Kilburn is ready to head out there.


Arturius finally catches Gem. Prepare to get soaked!


Instead of storm she casts paralyze on the archers and shoots them with the druids immediately after.


The Pikemen have the right idea. The cavalry will attack the druids hopefully killing them. With them dead the rogues and the pikemen should be able to kill the dwarfs before she casts another spell.


That went well.


Other than the drizzle everything went exactly as I wanted with the pikemen getting their usual last hit. Attack +1.

Wait a minute, no mention of yellow dying? Did they have another hero or town hidden somewhere?

Day 29

Welcome Carlawn. I need her to scout out the area between my new castle and my old castles. In addition she can protect our Phoenix producing castle.


I think it’s about time that we started to brave the center.

Arturius heads back home, Kilburn heads back out and Troyan hangs out.

Day 30

Blue out of nowhere!


We prepare ourselves. Troyan buys everything she can. Ector hurries to the knight castle and buys some archers.


Arturius to the rescue!

Day 31

Aww man, we did all that drinking for nothing.


Time for a pincer. Ector buys the units and stands next to the barbarian. Arturius shows up and takes the units.


Next is the attack!


You can check out the enemy hero by right clicking the tent. This barbarian has artifacts! There is no way that he has these stats without them. I really want to beat him!


We open the attack, but miss the kill on the griffins.
The enemy retaliates with paralyze on the archers after which everyone attacks them.


The gargoyles die to the swordsmen.


That attack score of his really hits our archers hard.


I have the rogues kill the centaurs instead of attacking the archers. This way I hope the AI doesn’t see its army dwindle too hard and allow me to kill it and claim the artifacts. The AI casts meteor storm in retaliation. Technically this is what I wanted.


Still, meteor storm hurt like hell. See my swordsmen and pikemen for proof.


10 archers down, go get them rogues!


The rogues do just that. Victory!



The neckless is a +4 to spellpower whereas the medal boosts morale with 1. To the victor go the spoils and the +1 attack.


Now this is a hero!


Carlawn spots the final yellow town and flags their ore mine. How do they have dwarves there?


Kilburn finds the snow border. I think that if we follow this we should be able to find the digging location. All we have to do is follow it. It kinda looks like it might be near the mountain range I'm staring at.

Next time we hopefully do some digging of the non well building variety.