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Author |
File Description |
implementor |
Posted on 11/23/11 @ 04:02 PM
File Details |
Ruleset: |
AoW: SM - Unofficial Patch 1.4 |
Map Size: |
XL |
Levels: |
2 |
Single Player?: |
Yes |
Co-Op vs. AI?: |
No |
PBEM/Hotseat?: |
No |
Multiplayer Online?: |
No |
# of Wizards: |
8 |
# of players: |
1 |
Skill Level: |
Expert |
Password Protected: |
No |
Surface Minimap:
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Cavern Minimap:
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This scenario is for EXPERT! players who want a challenge.
Requires patch 1.4
Max 5 heroes (can get more from events)
Max level 30
Some 100 custom items
56 custom heroes
100 custom events
You can NOT build teleportation gates
----- STORY -----
After your father "Grond the Hammer" died you swiftly "took care" of your relatives while they slept and announced yourself as the new King of the Goblins, this rash move angered many of the Goblins outside of the capital of Goblingate and they announced the independence.
To make sure that the Dwarves did not interfer with your plans you decided to give their capable leader the same gift that you hade given to your relatives, death by assassination.
The Dwarfking's bodyguards foiled your plans and exposed your plot, which of course led to war!
Now you must hurry, unite all of the Goblins that lives west of the great underground river and strike at the Dwarfs before they can muster their armies.
Your only ally in this mess is the weak Orc King "Graw" who lives to the north east of you, he has always been at feud with the dwarfs about who owns the right to the rich mines across the river, but you know that he underestimates the dwarfs and without your swift help he will surely fall to the dwarf armies.
The dwarfs have also called upon their allies from the surface, the Elves, the Halflings and the Archons, but they are currently locked in a deadly conflict with their ancient enemy "Scorn, King of the Dead" but the news from the surface are not good, as they are besigeing Scorns capital and if it falls they will come for you in great numbers.
--- SPOILER ---
--- SPOILER ---
--- SPOILER ---
--- SPOILER ---
--- SPOILER ---
Early game is quite easy (turn 1-70) then Noda will show up and things will start to look bad, if you are not prepared. If you are lucky he will turn up around turn 100.
The game got serveral different openings, Balkmog (your 1st hero outside of Goblingate)will give you information.
All give somewhat equal rewards, but if you want to complete the Wolfgate quest you have to hurry as the Archons will capture it if you don't do it and then you can not complete the quest any more.
Try to capture ALL cities on your side of the river, fast! Across the river there are 3 neutral cities that are of strategic importance, one northern populated by humans and one to the south populated by dwarfs. You should concentrate your defensive stacks here, at LEAST 3 stacks of good troops. The central one populated by halflings is only of importance if you dig through the earth wall with a beetle, and the only important until you capture the cities behid it (the city "Emperor's Hold" will be important).
Don't try to hold anything else, just loot and raze. "Back Door" will sometimes get assaulted by flying units, keep some anit air there (4-7 balistas/darters and a troll will do, maybe...)
Don't let your heroes die, EVER!
Get the cloak with resurgence ability from the crypts to the north and give it to your most powerful hero, it will he his/hers life insurance.
During late game (turn 250-350) you will need 5-8 lvl 20-25 fully geared heroes or... *splat*
Try to make peace with "Bore" at any price, ally youself with all friendly wizards and post units in their capitals so you can help them during combat by casting spells.
Trade spells with allied wizards before they fall (and maybe buy some of their items too).
One of them tends to die aound turn 75-100.
Get the "Enchanted roads" spell frome the vaults in the swamp to the south west, without it movement will e too slow on this large map.
At strategic cities build wizards towers to increase your domain and build Hall of Enchantment to make defence easier.
Don't forget to scout.
You can do it (just probably not the 1:st time), it is NOT impossible, just hard.
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Author | Comments ( All | Comments Only | Reviews Only ) |
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Watschenbaum |
Posted on 11/29/11 @ 05:22 AM
Dear implementor,
I have started playing your map a few days ago. I am enjoying this. I am not come further than round 40, yet, and I am still fascinated and thrilled. I'd really likle to know how strong my opponents will be.
I am wondering why rat_peddler hasn't commented on your map, yet. Usually he's the first to test newly published Aow2 maps ...
Regards
Watschenbaum
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implementor
File Author |
Posted on 11/29/11 @ 12:33 PM
---- SPOILER ----
---- SPOILER ----
---- SPOILER ----
The Archons, Halflings, Elves & Dwarfs will get reinforcements every 50 turns, you will also get a small announcement about that, nothing short of completly killing an enemy AI may stop that.
The reinforcements start out quite weak, first one is just an stack of tire 1-2 units, as the game goes on the quality (not quantity) goes up, at turn 200 or so they are getting a full stack or tire 4 (titans, dragons, etc, depending on their race) last reinforcement comes at turn 300.
The elves also get special reinforcements (you will get a warning about that). You can stop these reinforcements by doing a mission that you will get informed about.
In essence, the longer the game goes on the more powerful armies the AI will get, even if it just have one single city left. |
ratpeddler |
Posted on 12/01/11 @ 12:08 PM
I am in the "middle" of the game on day 240. I restarted once already after about 80 days. It is taking every dirty trick against the AI to have gotten this far. Probably time to read the spoilers to see what I should be doing ;-)
p.s. new id because I lost my old one when I forgot to update my email address before I lost access to it :-( |
Watschenbaum |
Posted on 12/02/11 @ 11:06 AM
Hi Implementor, hi Ratpeddler,
I am in round 85 or so now. I have just conquered Noda's capital and everything else looks quite fine. Maybe I have been very lucky so far or the real bad things are still to come.
Keep your fingers crossed ...
Have a nice weekend
Watschenbaum
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lympf |
Posted on 12/03/11 @ 10:14 AM
seems it's not winabel ba ignoring your instructions. let's see how far I come with |
implementor
File Author |
Posted on 12/03/11 @ 02:55 PM
Odd that you killed Noda at turn 85, it should not be possible, but sometimes the AI is so crappy that he leaves his wizard more or less undefended, not much I can do to fix it.
You do not have to follow my "spoiler instructions" to win the game, it just makes it a bit easier, anyway the spoilers mostly tells you about strategit points on the map, something that you will probably spot on your own, your 1:st hero Balkmog also gives some advice on how you can start you game, all are of equal importance and gives equal rewards, but if you think other things are of more importance during the early game, go for it.
My games starts with:
1. pool gold so you always have 200 in the bank, until 5 heroes (so you always can get new ones if they turn up)
2. Go to the crypts with ALL units to get 2:nd hero and then clear em out.
3. while doing that buld library in capital and get one beetle to dig out Bugtown after that just go straight for item forge and deck out you main melee hero (probably Balkmog) with:
Weapon: Dubbel Strike & Lifestealing & Lighning Strike (or maybe Cold Strike) for some 600 gold
Ring/armor/shield: with most protections (death, life, cold, lightning, holy, physical, magical, poision (unless Goblin hero, cause they start with it, and you will get fire immunity from "the immolation spell"))
One ring NEEDS Entangling Strike
If you can trade "Static shield" with Bore than create a ring with that too.
Spell research: one offensive (stoning, etc) enchant weapon and then just pure skills (reduced maintance is the most important, unless you want to stay broken during the entire game and after that +50% experience from combat) trade other stuff with friendly wizards.
---- SPOILER-----
---- SPOILER-----
---- SPOILER-----
All enemy AI:s should have 2 stacks as defence, at minimum, since they start with that and the stacks are set to "defend" but now and then the AI move some/all units from that stack anyway.
Sorry for that glitch, as Noda should be the hardest AI to kill.[Edited on 12/03/11 @ 03:08 PM]
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Watschenbaum |
Posted on 12/03/11 @ 08:04 PM
Hello,
here is a summary of what had happend until round 107 which is the moment I decided to regard the game as "won" from the goblin's point of view:
Following the "spoilers" given by various messengers during the first 20 rounds, I cleared the north-western underground first, then the south-western underground.
I met the Undead and the Orcs and allied with them (including the exchange of many spells throughout the game).
I met Bore, the Frostling, but this idiot didn't want to make peace with me although I offered him 600 gold and 600 mana. So I kept to be at war with him until the end. We didn't meet very often, however, so my "northern front" was quiet.
While I was still clearing the south-western underground with a strong size 5 stack, I started to invade Xelia from the north in order to capture her capital (round 73). Although I had two extremely large stacks at hand (including two mighty heroes and several elite Kharags and Basilisks - all spell-enhanced), I had to flee back to the underground. The "Divine Storm" spells Xelia cast several times a round ****ed up those units which I had built up for such long time. I would have reached Xelia's cap with a ruined army of maybe 8 units or so.
Then I turned against Noda from the south and - since the way from the underground hole to Noda's cap was quite short - quickly reached her cap and kicked her out at round 80. Noda was still alive though because she owned another wizard tower to the east. At round 99, however, I finally defeated her in her second cap.
At round 107 I defeated Xelia who only owned one wizard tower. This time I came in from the South. This victory, however, caused me heavy losses including one hero and many of my elite troops.
Immediately afterwards, however, I inspected the rest of the map (I had cast the "see all towns" spell - sorry, English is not my native language). Neither the two remaining good enemies nor the neutral Bore were hanging around with challenging stacks. Therefore, I decided I have won this game. Dear implementor, please correct me if this assessment is wrong.
I guess I had a very lucky start. I am definitely not an extremely good player. In those multi-player tournaments in the years 2004-2006 I got butt-kicked very often by players such as AnderlOstler, DuffyDodo, Munataros, King Kolusar, White Merlin, Gandalf_DK, and others.
If anybody is interested, I would like to attach my latest save file to this comment (or earlier saves).
Finally, dear implementor, I would like to thank you for your map. I highly appreciated your work. I have enjoyed this map for 4 evenings (3 - 5 hours each). For me this adventure was a thrilling escape from my my normal live.
Regards from sunny Munich
Watschenbaum[Edited on 12/04/11 @ 05:44 AM]
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tumult |
Posted on 01/13/12 @ 05:54 PM
The messages about elves worshipping the gods at a grove on the southern beaches got me chasing that damn grove all through the game (300 days) but I never found it. |
Robin1 |
Posted on 03/15/20 @ 11:51 PM
Dunno if anyone still read this, but I am playing the scenario atm and want to tell how i goes so far:
I dont consider myself an expert player, but if I get in trouble I use (and abuse) diplomacy. So till turn 60 really nothing happened, but as you wrote from turn 70 it gets rough, I used diplomacy to cause havoc on the surface, both to save me trouble and help Scorn survive. I arranged war between Xelia and Jelina plus war between Xelia and Noda. So till turn 90 it was calm and I could expand further. Then in 2 massive blows Fundin killed of Graw. And in turn 99 and 100 the almost forgotten "wrath of gods" story popped up. As I couldnt find any elvish priests in the southeast I took it I have to kill Jelina to get rid of those angel support. Meanwhile Xelia was killed by Jelina. Close after turn 100 Noda invaded the underground but within 10 turns I could kill off the whole invasion force. Now turn 130 I killed Jelina. A combo of damnation, kharrags with dark gift and enchanted roads give me the advantage over my foes. And Scorn is still doing well. As Fundin threatend twice to overrun him (but never did) I gave Scorn - diplomacy again - the Emperors Hold as a gift to make sure he stays alive. So looks like victory so far. |
Watschenbaum |
Posted on 02/02/21 @ 02:58 AM
@Robin1
In fact someone read your commment - 18 years after AoW2 come out ... I did!
The diplomacy tricks you described were completely new to me. Evaluated "unfair" at first glance, I turned to appreciate this policy as "just another method to solve a problem".
The map "Against all odds" can be mastered using conventional tactics as well. I retried in the year 2018 and it worked in a straight forward manner - as well as in 2011.
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HGDL v0.8.2 |
Rating |
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4.8 | Breakdown |
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Playability | 5.0 | Balance | 5.0 | Creativity | 4.5 | Map Design | 4.8 | Story/Instructions | 4.7 |
Statistics |
Downloads: | 2,558 |
Favorites: [] | 1 |
Size: | 237.00 KB |
Added: | 11/23/11 |
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