Part 13: Level 5 Lord Slayer
I always listen to what Aces says.Update 13
We start this update with a letter, don't worry there is only one letter left after this one.
11th Day of the Month of the Lizard, Common Year 641 posted:
Ragnar,
I have survived the last three years, no thanks to you. I thought for a time that all was lost. I had but one town, my capital,Ironfistopiathat the residents insist on calling Ironfist Keep. TwiceLunaI was besieged and twiceweI repelled the attacks.
Both times I captured the hero leading the attacking hosts. The first of these heroes was the same one I had captured before.I hired him!Thinking that I could gain great wealth I held him for ransom. I received a paltry offer the first time and reasoned that I had but to hold out and his master would offer a great sum. I never heard from that skin flint of a king again. I asked the hero to then serve me but he refused. I was bound by the code of royal blood and
could not execute him and thus had to let him go. I had lost a hero and had no ransom money to show for my effort.Please send me money!
The second time I was wiser and upon capturing the hero of the next attacking host I immediately made an offer to him and he gladly accepted the right to serve me. He has become a powerful ally. While still protecting the source of my power I sent him out and he recaptured the
town I once held to the south. I built my wealth up, investing in yet more structures to bring various creatures and brave warriors into my service. I had found that moving forward aggressively at the start of things might win great glory and honor, but also left one vulnerable to attack from the rear.
The next time I was attacked I repulsed it easily, driving my enemies before me and hearing the lamentations of their loved ones.
At great expense I builtthatched hutsjousting arenas to attract great and powerful knights into my service and then at even greater expense I erected a holy cathedral so that mighty paladins would rally to my banner.
I did not neglect the realms of magic either, for it was due to a weakness in such spells and powers that I had nearly been bested the first time I ventured out into the broad and dangerous world. Though they are expensive to develop, they are worth the investment.
The powers of those who wield magic are many. They have mastered arts here that your useless court magicians can barely imagine. There are various spells of protection and attack.
"And rain! It never stopped. 
" 11th Day of the Month of the Lizard, Common Year 641 posted:
There are spells that can burn an opponent into cinders or turn them into ice. My magic
users have spells that can enchant and spells that can block the strikes of swords and spears, while there are yet other spells than can aid greatly in the difficult art of siege craft.
"Because our catapults suck, the people here have no idea how to aim." 
11th Day of the Month of the Lizard, Common Year 641 posted:
At great expense I commissioned my magic users to master such subtle arcane arts as the ability to turn undead, to provide protection against the magic of others, to cure, to bless my warriors so that their strength increased, and to blind my opponents so thatwe could stab them in the back
"Oh wait, that's probably not the best thing to say right now." 11th Day of the Month of the Lizard, Common Year 641 posted:
and to blind my opponents so that they could not see where to attack.
I think I should add here that the pathetic wizard, Guthbert, who caused me so much trouble in your realm with his loose tongue and could not strike a mouse dead, would have been burnt to a crisp by the rivals he would face here.
I also developed my contacts with the thieves’ guilds and thus learned many secrets from them to help me in the campaigns I now planned.
After thus consolidating my powers I set out on an expedition that brought another hero into my service. I now had three armies. One, under the command of a trustworthy hero, I left to protect my homeland. The other I sent south to sweep back down to the sea, while I
marched eastward across broad open plains.
My hero in the south reached the coast where I had first marched years before, and taking a town there, he greatly strengthened it. A lighthouse was constructed to aid in the sailing of ships. I commanded him to move upon the flowing waters with caution for there were many dangerous creatures, brigands, and rival heroes upon the sea.
He guided his ships up the coast, taking the town of a sorceress and thus did my power wax greatly. Islands were next taken and their wealth added into my coffers, denying at the same time such wealth to rivals.
And then disaster struck yet again.It started raining.A shower of great stones, trailing fire, plummeted from the heavens, smiting down the host of my hero. It seemed as well that as I grew more powerful an alliance was formed between the rival kings to turn their combined strength against me. As a result all that I won in the south was lost.
I knew that if I stayed on the defensive the enemy would march to my gates. Therefore, I set out to meet the new threat. But this time I did not make the foolish move of stripping my capital and the towns close to it of their defenses. My reasoning was proper, for through some great and powerful magic an enemy army appeared, materializing out of thin air, near my capital. They were repulsed but at great loss of the city’s warriors, wizards, and wealth.
I now realize as well that I had neglected to build up strength with the great and dark creatures such as Gargoyles, Minotaurs, Hydras and the dreaded king of all, the Dragons. Thus I set out to bring the towns of warlocks under my control.
I found that though a Paladin was indeed a mighty warrior he was, as they say, ‘burnt toast’ when confronting an army with dragons. I shall work hard in these areas and then all shall tremble before me.
I am curious to know, is Ewine’s breath as disgusting as I now remember it to be?
You know, I like how he gets bolder with each letter.
Let's get started on this level, what was I doing again?
Oh right. This is surprisingly specific. So I need to head northeast to defeat him? Sounds easy enough. The desert part however doesn’t sound so good. Remember, barbarians don’t have a movement penalty on the sands. However this only counts for their barbarian heroes and the AI isn't smart enough to take this into consideration. It might be worth it to get a barbarian hero myself.
As I mentioned earlier these next three maps we'll be facing off against our competitors one at time. As such, this seems like the perfect moment to do a faction overview.
For the Knights: We have 1 shooter, 4 melee units and peasants.
This makes the Knight town the least balanced army in the game and, as witnessed time and again, badly equipped to perform sieges. Still, units are cheap. In fact, the knight town is the only town that can buy everything of their base growth on their weekly salary. They do come up short when they want to buy all units with the well, lacking 1.580 gold. The question then becomes, archers or pikemen. Leaving the archers gives you extra speed since the slowest unit is medium speed, but you'll never be able to wait out the enemy. At least the two strongest units are fast so you can close the gap in either the first or the second turn. Bringing archers allows you to wait for the enemy to come to you and in the case of the AI it gives them a nice big target to aim for. Unfortunately they're not very good and they're slow.
It's ironic that the knights are supposed to blitz their enemies, but get saddled with two tiers of slow units.
So how do we stack up against our barbarian targets?
The barbarians have 2 shooters and 4 melee units. On their weekly salary they come up just short to buy everything. One poor goblin will be left behind.
Going on the offensive they rely on their cyclopes (I thought it was spelled cyclopses 
), trolls and wolves. They need the wolves for the speed as they are the only barbarian unit with a speed rating of fast. I take it running is problematic for the cyclops due depth perception problems. Knights are all about defense and they wipe the floor with the Barbarian defensive capabilities. Interestingly the barbarian is only slightly higher in total attack even though that should be their forte, in fact taking into account the specialty of the paladins and the wolves the knights have a better attack score. And if we ignore the HP gap, I'd say the knights are far superior to the barbarians. I feel good about my chances.
Putting the scores next to each other like this you can almost see the attempt at balance New World Computing was going for.
Enough numbers. Today’s hero du jour is lord Kilburn. As usual, he starts back at level 1 again. Look at all those resources someone left lying around. Hey, I have a village as well as a town.
Welcome to Winterkill. I detect irony in the name of this town and the map it's on. It’s surprisingly well built. In fact, looking at the building schematics if I could get crystal I could immediately build paladins. As it stands though I think I’ll start with cavalry since I don’t immediately see any crystal mines in my vicinity.
The village disappointingly only contains archers and peasants.
There is plenty of money lying around and I see a sawmill. Usually there are resource piles near the production facility. Money is one of the bottle necks so, so I’ll upgrade the village first and concentrate on getting this town up and running faster with the extra money. The wood I use up can be replenished with the piles near the sawmill so I can still get my cavalry.
I also want to cover some ground. So Kilburn buys the swordsmen and pikemen, but leaves the archers and peasants behind. This helps his speed and I’ll buy a second hero who can have the other units he left behind so that hero can go attacking neutral stacks and collect resources.
Kilburn buys a spell book allowing him to cast the powerful magics Morglin spoke of. Powerful spells such as bless, view mines and view resources would've turned Guthbert into toast and thus are sure to turn the tides of battle!
At least another excuse to use view mines again. The nearest crystal mine is in the lower left corner of the map. So I probably made the right call. I do see something that worries me, the barbarians have multiple crystal mines on their ground. They need crystal to build their level 6 units.
He picks up the two piles of gold (+1.400) and he attacks the gargoyles.
I bless the swordsmen for the extra damage.
I’m not sure why, but the AI prefers to attack the swordsmen. So whenever one dies the next moves to the swordsmen. The Pikemen and the Swordsmen work together killing one stack a time.
Teamwork!
Victory, now to claim our prize.
It’s the mage ring giving a very pleasant +2 to spell power so at least my bless will work more than one turn.
The second hero is Troyan. She begins by picking up the gold to the right of the castle, which is 3.400 in total.
Day 2:
Killburn picks up the wood piles and it’s 28 in total. More than enough for a jousting arena. I want to do more, but the jousting arena costs 3.000. I don't have that money right now, so I’ll have Troyan collect more money first.
I now have the option of getting a barbarian hero or a knight hero. The movement advantage will be nice no matter if he ends up being a mule or a real hero.
He hands off the new cavalry and the orcs to Kilburn who will get the orcs killed when he attacks the centaurs guarding the sawmill.
It’s not the same as getting orcs killed, but I think I prefer this outcome. Let’s welcome 38 centaurs to the army.
Day 3:
Antoine can have his smelly orcs back. We have faster half horse men to help us out now.
Kilburn heads to pick up the wood (+25) and scout the area up there. Antoine heads to the left.
He finds a desert and a shrine that can teach us bless. Not a very useful shrine since we already know it.
Troyan picks up the ore(+16) and attacks the goblins guarding the mine.
This should be easy enough.
We plan to wait them out.
This goes well for about 2 turns.
The peasants were the only melee unit I had that was able to kill a stack of goblins in a single go and this after they were hit first. This shot is the sprites retaliation against a single goblin trying to avenge his fallen brethren.
The dwarves finish what they started.
Victory tastes like an ore mine.
I have money and both Kilburn and Troyan can actually cast spells now (even if Kilburn can only do it once). So I buy a mage guild lvl2 for the main town and I buy a tavern in the other so I can work on swordsmen there.
Jackpot! It's beautiful! The best second level spells I could've received.
Day 4:
Kilburn finds and visits a gazebo and he levels up.
Other than that not much happens. I do buy an armory in the second town so I can buy swordsmen there.
Day 5:
So I see boots of speed, pikemen and a rogue camp. This gives me an idea involving pikemen, rogues, Kilburn and boots of speed.
Meanwhile Troyan wanders a bit into the desert.
Antoine finds riches beyond imagination and I buy a well. Tomorrow is the 7th day, so adding a well to the second town will boost the growth there. This should let me start up a second weaker army.
Knight needs crystal badly.
I miss my paladins. Day 6:
I can win this, but I don’t want to lose any cavalry or archers.
The centaurs are going to soften them up, but they only kill 2 per shot, which means they should be able to do a stack every two turns. Thanks to the AI failing at pathfinding I might be able to get three turns before we have to engage.
The rogues attack on the third turn killing 4 pikemen.
The cavalry block the way to the centaurs and kill three pikemen per attack. Hopefully I can keep them all alive.
Later games allow you to see how much HP a unit has left. In this case I have to keep a tally myself... but I’m too lazy to get some paper for that. I estimate they’re just beyond 20 damage.
Another round means two times 2 in damage on the cavalry.
I just hope that single pikeman at the top doesn’t try to attack them as well. 
Or I block them with my less valuable and slightly damaged pikemen.
A single rogue was lost. I'm satisfied with this result.
Kilburn claims the prize and 2.000 in gold. Boots of speed are extremely welcome in this scenario.
Antoine heads into the castle to wait for the new day. He can get some units, probably for Kilburn but maybe I´ll be nice and let him keep them so he can scout the desert with his superior movement. I want money to get units and have to strong armies so I can bring the fight to the barbarians instead of having them come to me.
Yeah, this update is light on screenshots, but think of all the good times ahead of us.