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Update 15, level 9: Corlagon’s Defense
Following the vote we’ll be taking the mercury along for the ride. This should help me get my flaming ducks in a row.
Just as an aside, thetruegentleman was able to tell me why Mercury is associated with the sorceress town.
thetruegentleman posted:
Because Mercury actually has connotations through Alchemy both as the "female principle", which makes it connected to the Sorceress (Sulfur is the male principle, and thus connected to the Warlocks), and as a substance that "transcends both the solid and liquid states, both earth and heaven, both life and death", which has a rather obvious relation to the Phoenix.
LPing has excellent educational value.
My brave lord has holed up inside a castle across a river and somehow still doesn’t feel safe. Lord Corlagon is apparently a big deal, I wonder if he’s as big as Wyrm was.
Anyway, first thing you’ll notice as your eyes wander away from the wall of text in the pop up is that we have 3 heroes and 3 castles representing all flavours of the powers of justice and all that’s good in the world. Not like wizards have ever, or will ever do anything stupid that could end up badly.
I immediately recognise the heroes as Luna, sir Gallant and Halon the suspiously green genie.
Other than an overly eager grin Luna brings nothing special to the table.
Meanwhile sir Gallant is actually lord Haart! Gasp!
Just as a quick reminder, this is lord Haart as he was in Heroes1.
And this was him in Heroes3.
And this was him in the GBC version.
That hair is the scalp based counterpart of Kilburns mustache in importance to Enroth.
Lord Haart is a weird hero in that at some point NWC decided that he was going to be important to the storyline so he shows up in 1 (he’s even used in the manual as the mugshot for the knight faction introduction instead of Morglin), he obviously show up in 2 and even plays a very big part in the storyline in 3.
Heroes3 even gives a reason for why he still looks so nice after so many years.
Yes, he’s a necromancer and later dies and is resurrected as a Death Knight by his own cult after which he dies again. Some people have all the luck, good looks, your own cult and being a necromancer.
The way I see it, there are only two possible explanations for why he is sharing lord Gallants portrait. 1: He didn’t want to bum out Luna for having better hair and thus disguised himself.
2: It was a programmer’s oversight, either caused by being a last minute addition or just a mistake because programmers are supposedly human like you and the other readers.
Interesting stories about lord Haart aside, he brings serious firepower to the table in this level. We’re coming for you Corlagon!
And Halon will also be there coming for you, being a perfectly average wizard.
Meanwhile, my three bases are actually two villages and a castle. First is the Viper’s Nest, which is a bad ass name for a town filled with women. It can be upgraded, but currently just has a tree house where little Nicolai can play. Obviously, being the homebase for lord Haart the knight town will be in much better shape.
Or not. It also has the interesting name of Troy. Let’s hope Archibald didn’t bring any wooden centaurs along.
And we finish with pigs eye, probably home to the best boars one can ever hope to find.
One more thing. Do you remember the sorceress treaty we picked up 2 levels and many months ago? That suspicious looking cleavage in the hero selection is their way to repay us.
Meet Sister Eliza the Sorceress. She comes prelevelled to level 5 and will always offer herself replace the first hero for hire in the tavern in the first week. If you’re stupid and don’t hire her in the first week she’s gone. So consider her hired.
Archibald’s campaign actually has a counterpart to her and no, it’s not Wyrm.
Now time to get a move on. I’m not going to build anything yet, let’s creep around a little and see if we can get the resources to do some upgrades as well as I’m a little light on funds.
Luna drops her normal dwarfs in the village and hires some sprites. She then picks up some battle dwarfs that were camping on her doorstep and she goes north to scout. Both battle dwarves and sprites are average speed which helps with the creeping. Since the middle castle now has two heroes I can send one of them to take the bit between the top and the middle castles.
Lord Haart enters the observatory to let his hair dance in the wind. There are many groups of dwarves on the ground that spot his luscious locks and as a result prepare to join our cause. They will make excellent additions to the army.
There is also a hill fort where we can upgrade dwarves to battle dwarves for free. 
Just outside of the screenshot I also spot the endless sack of gold artefact.
This looks like a river. It’s probably important that we don’t lose the sorceress town where you can probably build ships if you upgrade it.
Halon also finds an observatory.
He’s going after the wood and stops at a gazebo on the way there. He gets pathfinding.
An archery range is built and Eliza gets some archers.
Day 2
The vision spell, is always a welcome addition to the spellbook.
Afterwards she picks up some ore and an ore mine. Look at all the artifacts and the rogues camp. I am considering giving her some rogues to bolster he forces. Speaking to my future self reveals that this will never come to be.
Lord Haart meanwhile reminds us why scouting with peasants and archers is a terrible idea.
Halon claims the lumbermill and moves to pick up some dwarves. My current plan is to consolidate my knight castle with the resources I can find before trying to build up the others. We’ll see how that goes.
Eliza upgraded her dwarfs and is now moving to liberate the mine guarded by a party of dwarfs and gargoyles.
To honour my arrival the townsfolk erect a statue of Roland riding a horse in my likeness.
Day 3
Luna starts picking up some toys.
Lord Haart meanwhile inches forward.
And Eliza does battle! 
She picked up the dwarves with her feminine whiles, but the gargoyles saw right through the ploy and attacked. Defend her my short hairy men!
We may have a slight speed disadvantage, but we hit much harder…at least the dwarves do. The others are mostly there to draw fire.
The sprites died, now who am I supposed to obsessively screenshot? 
And so the battle ends.
And we gain a gem mine.
Day 4
Halon visited the waterwheel to get some extra cash. It was a terrible idea since the miller…wheeler…You know what, I have decided that the official term is wheeler, complete with workoutfit. Anyway it was a waste of time being only 500 gold.
I elected to not attack the sprites and moved to the right. I then remembered I had vision and discovered that the orcs want to fight me. I had forgotten that vision always picks the closest stack to examine.
Lord Haart is doing what he can.
I piss off this leprechaun by not having enough crystal to buy this scroll. I hate being poor.
We’re getting there.
Day 5
Luna found some druids with a penchant for shipping.
She also found this medal of valor, this might be unrelated to the previous discovery.
And a Mojo Jojo proof pendant is retrieved by Lord Haart.
Not pictured me sending him up and immediately changing my mind.
Nothing interesting to be found for Halon.
Eliza picks up some much needed gold. Now I have enough to upgrade a village to a castle and fix my income up a little.
But what will I do. I have 20 ore, so I can’t upgrade a village and a blacksmith or an armory at the same time. So I can upgrade an archery range or build a jousting arena at the same time. I also take a quick look at the cathedral, it doesn’t need ore. I decide that it doesn’t matter and build a jousting arena. After checking my kingdom overview I discovered that I have 3 mills and 3 ore mines. It’ll replenish fast enough and I need more unit dwellings before the new week.
Now for reasons totally not related to procrastination I had the goons vote for which town to upgrade.
They voted wisely as can be expected of goons.
Day 6
Yes, nothing of interest happens. Though I did rediscover that you need to be within 3 spaces for vision to work.
We find another saw mill. At least we’ll always have enough wood.
You can get a lot of peasants here, better keep this a secret from PCSnob. I’m not sure if he can be trusted around them.
We also build rangers and an archery range in my newest castle.
Day 7
I finally spot something worthwhile with Luna. Let’s go and check it out.
I have a sneaky suspicion that that compass will still be there when this map ends.
I have upgraded the jousting arena and added a statue.
Day 8
A new day dawns and with it comes a new week. It’s week of the orc.
Luna almost reaches the building I spotted earlier, it’s an observatory.
More scouting!
If the past few comments appear short, that’s because I’m actually a little bored. I love Heroes2, but the Heroes of Might and Magic formula has a massive downside in that it’s incredibly repetitive. Each level you just rebuild, try and shift the balance of power even a miniscule inch in your direction and then you steamroll. Now the fight for power is usually fun, but the construction part is always the same. You can’t vary since all castle have a set building order and you never get new buildings or units between the levels like you do with most RTS games. If you ask me, that is the biggest problem the game has.
Lots and lots of goblins are here as well.
But does the dark side 
? I think not. 
Day 9
I spy with Luna’s little eye.
My brave king hiding in a yellow knight castle. Wait, what? Yellow? :nall: Really subtle there NWC, really subtle. To Wikipedia!
Wikipedia posted:
According to surveys in Europe, Canada and the United States, yellow is the color people most often associate with amusement, gentleness, and spontaneity, but also with duplicity, envy, jealousy, avarice, and, in the U.S., with cowardice. It plays an important role in Asian culture, particularly in China, where it is seen as the color of happiness, glory, wisdom, harmony and culture.
So it doesn’t have to mean cowardice. In that case I choose to believe it means all that positive stuff. He’s a cultured, wise and happy man spreading spontaneous amusement wherever he goes.
And why is there a glowing door on his island. I don’t like this.
Well, at least he’s well protected.
What are all these leprechauns doing here? I can buy it, but I hold off. I’m strapped for cash and the +1 to attack isn’t going to fix that yet.
Of course Halon finds an enemy castle. Why not one of the strong heroes. Well, Halon is not yellow, so he’s going to put up his bravest green face and go after them. At least this should solve my boredom.
I hope Wyrm sees this. This is what a strong hero looks like.
He’s a knight.
Day 10
A brand new day and it smells like rotten flesh. I wonder if the enemy will wait it out. I discover that Halon only knows his starting spell, stone skin which I immediately cast. My first shot missed the wall.
And now there’s a hole there. Unsurprisingly, the mummies decided to wait their turn out. The vampires however really wanted to drink dwarf blood.
The pigs do very little to the skeletons, but the dwarves make quick work of the vampire.
After rekilling the skeletons we attack the mummies in a clever pincer attack. They never knew what hit them several time before finally dying.
Towers will get targeted by the catapult if all walls are down. It’s a bit late catapult, those towers already did their job. I lost a lot of dwarves.
Still a great victory! And the first step to shift that fragile balance in my favour.
And a new castle!
Welcome to Lankarshire. There were some units to be bought. I can actually buy a mausoleum and I’m considering doing so. But let’s see how the rest of the turn goes.
That is one well protected village.
Eliza and Haart will be trading some units. The other will be sent back to the knight castle for a fresh army.
Day 11
Eliza and Haart trade some units. Haart has leadership so he can mix and match armies. This is actually quite formidable especially considering his stats. Meanwhile Eliza gets a single average speed goblin to keep her speed up. The alternative was saddling her with peasants…
I’m a little worried about Corlagon. He’s slowly making his way to my sorceress castle. So I’m sending Luna home and I’m building some more stuff there so I can defend it.
Day 12
I don’t think Charity is going to be able to make it before her 7 days are up and she times out.
Day 13
I elected to have Luna quickly recruit some more dwarves and sprites. She also gets a gold mine out of the deal. Why didn’t I pick that up earlier. 
I also park Eliza in the worst place possible.
Day 14
It works out fine. I wasn’t worried.
Hey Crag, we met your brother earlier and I see your castle. Would you mind if Lord Haart takes it?
Day 15
I don’t even…
Why did you dump your champions for rogues? I can’t…how do you… I? All right, ready or not Luna is coming for you!
Yes, that village is very lightly defended. It only contains some pikemen and archers. She can and will take it. But it will set her back quite a lot since she has to start from scratch and as soon as things calm down I will wipe her from the map.
Day 16
The AI doesn’t like to attack if it isn’t sure that it has a massive advantage. So it left Haart alone and Haart capitalizes on this by attacking his castle. I suddenly discover that I never gave him a spellbook.
There is something satisfyingly ironic about watching hired goblins take out a barbarian castle for a knight hero.
Yes, this is an ambush. Luna is going to take him out.
Charity is trying to rebuild. It’s kind of sweet.
Those stupid dwarves joined up with him! Traitors! Not visible on the screenshot, but we’re faster than him. We’ll get him next turn.
Meanwhile Haart gets a spellbook.
Day 17
See! Also, it says day 17, but that isn’t right. I was hit by a severe case of just another turn and totally caught up in the moment so I somehow messed up my days by missing some screens and it’s a lot later now. Like day 20. 
At least I’m having fun!
You call yourself a knight while serving Archibald. Lord Kilburn would shave that pathetic excuse of a mustache. You’re a disgrace.
He knows blind. This is going to be trouble.
I’m really not sure if my top sprites picked the correct target. I had hoped that they would do more damage than this and then block the orcs.
That didn’t work out the way I’d hoped it would. You’ll also notice that everyone is blind.
He also has great morale.
Really great morale and AI level luck since he’s been keeping my dwarves blinded constantly with so far only 1 resist.
He’s out of spellpoints, but I’m just getting started. I have bless and I have bloodlust. One ups the attack rating and the other ups the damage. I keep casting those spells since Luna is at a physical disadvantage compared to him.
It’s a great slugfest.
More like Corlagone. 
Well actually, he ran away. Crap. I wanted to beat him. You need to beat him to finish the secondary mission. Hopefully the enemy rehires him.
Haart hired some war trolls and now he’s off again.
And I’m done for now. This last bit has been pretty hectic. The way things are going I have good hopes that things will end next update. I for one look forward to it.