Part 2
I haven't been able to find the themes yet.
Update 2:
Last time we defeated a pack of gargoyles and opened the center part of the island to find Gateway. We start at the start of day 8.
Day 8:
Wrathmont picks up the Peasants and heads home.
Money is a bit tight, but we buy all our cavalry, swordsmen and 2 archers. He gives the units to Agar who runs to Ambrose to reinforce his army as he scouts the center part. I saw an enemy run around here, but I don’t see him now.
Also, meet Gateway, the bustling metropolis that will be a great boon to whoever takes it. It's a sorceress village. Hurrah.
I'm suspecting the peasant may not know what he was talking about, but at least there are rare resources around here. Day 9:
Ambrose goes to get the ballista artifact. I can think of only a few reasons why the computer didn’t pick it up. It’s either guarded, cursed or the AI is set for moronic in the first level. I know it's not cursed because I'm not aware of cursed artifacts that look like that. Leaving only the other two options, I’m not sure which one I should be hoping for.
It’s guarded.
They look like reasonable men.
Now normally I would only post these bits as I get these units under control. However rogues are a level 1 neutral unit. They can be purchased if you can find the correct location on the map for 50 bucks. However you will probably never have them. They have skyhigh attack, but take punches like a diseased little girl. They have the same ability as the Sprites in that creatures can’t retaliate against their attacks. Usually they’re not really worth it. In case you are wondering, yes they are better than peasants.
I quickly discover that my cavalry are stuck behind the tree.
Seeing how they move I notice the shrubbery. Clever positioning of my units should allow me to wall them from my archers. The pikemen can block the one near the centaurs while the cavalry and swordsmen do the same at the bottom of the map.
The archers get a lucky shot. It probably wasn’t necessary, but still nice. I think I prefer the Heroes2 lucky animation where a rainbow comes out of nowhere and arches across the battlefield to touch the lucky unit. The only downside was how long it would sometimes take, even if it was only like a second or 2.
The cavalry bolstered by the lucky shot and happy to be out of their trap decide that now is a great time for high morale. Unfortunately, they can’t reach anything due to the stupid bush! (what are those, cattails?)
Stupid small map. 
Yeah, you can guess how that ended. Not a single casualty.
The ballista of quickness allows our catapult to fire twice in a siege. This is great!
Back home we buy more units with Wrathmont as Agar parks himself halfway. We end our turn.
Day 9:
Agar gets some pikemen from home. Ambrose meanwhile decides to attack yellow. He passes through the gem mine, claiming it for the greater glory of Ragnar as he goes along.
Wrathmont buys pikemen and gives them to Agar. I expect the enemy to come knocking now Ambrose has left the building.
Day 10:
I was right, a barbarian immediately shows his face.
I want to get this over with, so I let Ambrose continue his approach on yellow territory. Meanwhile, back home we buy another level of mage guild.
Agar will like this.
Lightning bolt does 25 times spellpower in damage to a single target. Consider the health of our cavalry and the starting spellpower of the warlock and you can see how hard this can hit us.
The other spell is Turn undead, which destroys one troop of undead unit. I’m not sure if they mean a stack or just one unit. I hope a stack, because otherwise it would be even more useless. There is only one undead unit in the entire game and you can’t recruit them. They are however worth fearing as they have the potential to be unstoppable.
Agar quickly heads home and learns the spell. He then moves away a bit, but stays in range of Wrathmont.
Ambrose visits the enemy gazebo (+1 atttack) and continues on.
I wonder if yellow has any heroes, because I don’t see any.
Day 11:
Blue decides to come looking as well.
Wrathmont buys everything we have, including the peasants and passes them on to Agar.
You shall not pass!
Meanwhile, Ambrose storms the castle.
What? Who the hell designed this castle? There’s no door.
This is a problem for the knights and a reason why I was very happy with the ballista. We have no flyers and a bad shooter. Meanwhile, they have elves, who are literally twice as good as archers (They get two shots per turn) and a high damage arrow tower to back them up.
To make matters worse, castle walls ensure that our archers take a penalty on their damage.
Drawbridges were introduced in the second heroes game, I have no idea why they aren’t in this one. I guess that means that the first thing king Ironfist did was start up a doors services company where he lets everyone pass freely while he searches their pockets as they pass.
Anyway, the cavalry blocks the archers in case the sprites come out to play.
Good job guys, glad to see you’re eager.
I was busy typing and missed the sprite attack, sorry.
There is a hole there. Did I tell you yet that catapults can miss.
Two shots and only one hits. 
One hit, one miss. I miss the heroes3 ballista skill. Anyway, charge!
I blessed the cavalry, they killed the dwarves and received a morale bonus. Bye you pointy eared freaks.
Almost all our archers are dead. But at least he gets a +1 to knowledge allowing him to remember 2 of each spell.
Apparently they didn’t have any heroes. I am beginning to suspect the level of AI I am up against.
Welcome to Portsmith. Not much has been built. I always like the sorceress towns, they’re so bright and clean and the animations give it a very tranquil atmosphere.
Enjoy:
Yay, lightning bolt!
We also get haste and slow.
Haste: Troop speed becomes fast.
Slow: Slowed troops always move last and can move only one tile.
One day Ubisoft should introduce the spell peasant polymorph.
We need money, so no rest for Ambrose who attacks the goblins above the castle.
Day 12:
Apparently passing was easy. Even better, blue decided to show up.
I can take them both, but I’m not sure if I can take them so shortly one after the other with Agar. He’ll run out of spells. Well, no time like the present.
Let’s go after the barbarian first.
He has wolves, which are fast attacking units, but take hits like slightly used bargain toilet paper. They also have ogres who are just big slow slabs of meat. If both armies would meet at the middle and just slug it out, he could win thanks to them. It’s not likely, but not impossible either. Fortunately, that would just be stupid. Instead I’ll just lightning bolt them before they even get halfway. I considered lightning bolting the wolves first, but I think I’ll do the goblins first. The wolves will probably just put themselves into a position where any of my guys can skewer them, while the goblins need an uneven amount of turns to get here. Considering that the lack of grid on the ground screws up my movement estimates this seems safer.
Unfortunately, after typing this I hit the lightning bolt and forget to cap the screen. Anyway, Agar does a 100 damage on a single lightning bolt.
He lightning bolts the archer and moves the wolves in range of the goblins and possibly the peasants. Maybe they will get a kill after all.
Probably not. The gargoyles freeze in fear due to low morale.
Yeah, not doing the honorable thing and meeting them in the middle was probably a good idea. 
That sure is a lightning bolt.
Somehow, even while hitting screenshot 6 times during the animation I manage to miss the hit pose from the Ogres. Which is too bad since it looks like they’re catching an arrow. This leaves the peasants and ends the battle. Logically the computer decides the best course of action is to blind the pikemen.
One arrow to the knee later and those peasants are reporting for guard duty.
Meanwhile, Ambrose attacks the goblins for supplies.
This goes well for them, since I notice the tree trunks and the tree at the bottom create a line with three empty spaces in the middle. My non ranged units move in there to defend my massively important archery units and slaughter the goblins like the sub human pottery makers they are.
He then goes after the peasants above the goblins to take their gold. I’m playing and I want to see my cavalry slaughter defenseless peasants while listening to the broom sound. So I move them in and have everyone wait while they get all the fun. For comparison, one stack of peasants does 4 damage to them.
Gold! We already picked up 1.500 gold + 600 gold + 3 mercury
I build Stonehenge in the sorceress town to get druids.
Druids are the second best shooter of the game, but only due to the special ability of the other. They are fast and hit hard costing only 350 in gold. Since our other shooters are just archers I didn’t have to think long about buying a few. They also have an awesome sound effect that sounds like they’re firing their lasers. I wonder if they’re hiding ray guns in those sleeves. I also consistently misspell them as duirds.
Day 13
The blue hero slowly moves towards my home territory. So slow in fact that I decide to ignore him for the week to change.
Ambrose picks up the last chest. +1.000 gold and he flags the coal mine, while moving next to the sawmill.
Wrathmont moves to the peasant cottage allowing Agar to replenish his spells and army and we wait.
Day 14
This is the best week for me. Every now and then the astrologers proclaim a special week for an actual unit. During this week the growth of the unit is increased. In this case I can now recruit an additional 5 swordsmen, making a total of 11.
Ambrose heads to Portsmith and buys himself all the druids he can. He also buys the elves and sticks them in the place of the archers.
I already said it, and I will say it again elves are literally twice as good as archers. They have the same damage range, but come with medium speed, 5 extra hitpoints but one point less attack. Instead they get to fire twice per round. An all round good archer in most armies.
With Ambrose’s army restocked he heads back to the middle. The actual goal of this level is to take the center town. This is the third time I’m playing this level, though it’s only the second one that is going to be finished. In my second playthrough I defeated all the enemies and took my time to take out the center town. I’m not going to do that this time. Instead I will straight up attack Gateway with my current strength, which is more than sufficient.
You do get a grade at the end of the game and the grade is determined by the time it took you to finish it. I have no chance at a high score due to my “expertise”, so I will just do as I always do. Do it half assed and pretend not getting a high score is due to the computer cheating. Anyway, you get nothing extra from a high score so I don’t care.
Back home Agar dumps the archers and the peasants and prepares to buy faster and more powerful units. He can combine his armies with Ambrose and we’ll steamroll Gateway and whoever gets in our way.
Day 15
Agar buys 8 swordsmen and a pikeman. He then runs to the center.
Ambrose considers a detour through some archers to get the bag. If memory serves, that is a bag of endless gold. And thanks to the miracle of replaying to get better screenshots I know my memory serves me well. I also know that knowing my luck this will be the last time we see it. It provides 750 extra each day. As mentioned earlier, in Heroes1 it isn’t possible to boost your income so this is one of the best artifacts.
Day 16
The computer stays away from the center. I wonder why.
Ambrose visits the fairy ring for extra luck. Agar gives him everything his little heart desires and we attack the dragons!
Dragons are the strongest single unit in the game and they are this easily. Having twice the HP of the next strongest unit combined with decent speed, an attack that can hit more than one square, high stats and flight. It’s also completely immune to magic, though this is a double edged sword. Yes, if an enemy gets a dragon things could get difficult. I don’t think this emote gets any use, but it’s definitely appropriate in most battles that involve dragons.
It’s even the right color. 
Of course, this dragon is completely alone and thus no match at all.
Druids are fast shooters, so they go first. They only do 39 damage of the 200 HP.
Have a sound effect. Yes, spiritual power sounds like lasers.
I cast haste on the cavalry. This allows them to cross the range in a single go. I had hoped that they could finish off the dragon.
They didn’t.
You've already had two sound effect. Originally I wasn’t going to add sound effects, since in my mind the most amusing sound effects only get introduced in the second heroes. (BLAH!) But a friendly forum user called Pierzak pointed out that I was wrong.
I hope you’re happy Pierzak! This means I now feel obligated to try and catch all amusing/awesome sounds. I'm still sitting on a good chance to post the Gargoyle hit sound. So listen and fear as the dragon flies over and flushes my druids through the toilet.
The druids counter attack, but the dragon lives to flush another day.
The pikemen poke.
[img]http://lpix.org/1672129/106youdie.png[/img]
The swordsmen finish the job. It says enough about the dragons strength that almost everyone had to attack it just to kill one of them. Or maybe this says more about the Knights strength.
But before I do that, let’s talk intel. I have already shown that we can scout enemy armies by right clicking. However we can check out which enemies there are in the town. But we can’t see their estimates. Originally I couldn’t even see what was in there which is why I haven't used it yet. This is the role of the thieves guild. Portsmith has a thieves guild and it gives us more information.
In addition to its ability to provide intel it also allows us to get a bearing on our power. I never bothered to build one since I find it fairly useless. But we’re at the end of the level so we might as well build on in Bloodreign as well.
The more thieves guilds you have the more information you get. Huh, blue is richer than me.
And with the second thieves guild I can now see the estimates. Not that it matters, we’re strong. (for this level)
I contemplate waiting a few days before attacking. There is an interesting thing in Heroes1. The campaign follows up on itself. Meaning if I end the level on day 7, it will be day 7 that we start on the next map. Currently it’s day 3. I would like to end on day 7 since It would allow me to buy more units the next day. In fact, I will wait.
Day 17
An enemy hero approaches. I decide to do nothing.
That was unexpected. Maybe he died of old age because I took so long.
Day 18
I could give chase, but never mind. I’ll just finish this level.
Day 19
So close he could taste it. I actually bought some defenses there. I’m pretty sure we could take him, especially if we buy a hero. But it’s day 6 this week. So let’s attack Gateway instead.
They’re a bigger challenge than the dragon was. But seriously, this is nothing. Since this is a village and not a castle there are no castle walls, in fact there is nothing here.
We cast lightning bolt on the druids. Ambrose only does 25 damage. But that is still one druid less. Hopefully mine can finish them.
These guys can take even crotch fires. Cavalry are next and they get to wait. I want the sprites to come over and the cavalry can’t reach anything.
The sprites come over and die. The elves are next and get a morale boost.
I cast haste on the cavalry and the druids shoot at the elves, killing three.
Welcome to The Matrix amateur hour. Despite what it looks like, he hit them. They counter attacked doing a whole 1 damage. The elves then piled on their 1 damage and got a face full of lance as thanks.
Look at those manly arms.
Now that I think about, if I had hasted my cavalry at the start those two druids probably wouldn’t have died. Startergie!
Level up.
I hope that horse knows where it's going, Ironfist probably can't see anything in the helmet.
Nah, I think I’ll finish my update before I continue on.
I’ll be honest I didn’t show everything yet (like those blue obelisks), but I want to have something to talk about for next updates. Anyway, next time we let peasants sail a boat.