I just managed to get past Chapter 4 in hard mode, it was probably the hardest mission in the series, even harder than Green Wave (at least in that mission you could see some progress after destroying red or one of the other bases). I tried the strategies other users posted here but none of them worked for me, at least not by following them religiously, but they inspired me to develop my own strategy.
Everyone knows the main issue with this chapter is that you don't get enough time to get a second base (blue base), so after seeing the enemy retreat sometimes after destroying some of my structures in previous tries, I had an idea. After the first wave, I started to build some towers (one tower per road) in the roads that the enemies walk to attack my base, hoping that after destroying my tower and killing the peon (make sure the tower is completed and the peon is next to it [a humble offering to the old gods, I suppose]), they would return to their base. It worked for 3 waves (the 2nd wave, from the north, 3rd wave of elites, and 4th wave from purple) and some extra waves. Since I didn't have to fight those waves, I had enough time to destroy the blue base, kill all their units (it's very important to kill the units in the southern part because they'll come to destroy your new Great Hall - one of the reasons why destroying this base takes a lot of time).
After that I tried to rebuild the towers to get some extra time to get more gold and units but the enemies destroyed them and attacked me, but since i still had the group of allies helping me, I managed to clear them with ease. This strat seems to fuck up a bit the timing of the waves, so at some point I had 2 waves at the same time, one with elites from northwest, and one with the hero from the south. I still managed to beat both because I had a lot of units so I could send my wounded golems to the fountaing without losing dps. I killed the elites first and then the purple wave, immediately after that I moved my units to the road to purple and tried the strat used by user
@far336, cleared the blue knights, destroyed their barracks while building 4 barracks there + some burrows (I didn't build towers, seemed like a waste of gold and peons) and also building towers again in the western and northern roads, hoping I could avoid at least one wave.
At this point I had a large army so I started to attack the purple base, first by pulling all their units with my hero so I could get more room to attack them. After killing them I tried to pull the elites defending the towers at the entrance of purple base too (if they didn't follow my hero in the first pull) and killed them outside, after that I destroyed the 2 towers by using my catapults (if the entrance is cleared you won't get attacked by the units that are far inside). Their hero would problably be part of the first or second pull, so to get some more time after killing him, I killed him last, but I had to prevent him from using heal or resurrect so I kept using soul burn or sleep or him.
After destroying the towers at the entrance I had more room to fill more units inside their base, so I carefully moved them to the left side and destroyed their altar. Then, according to the situation, I focused down some soldiers, ranged units, or towers to avoid taking too much damage, also killed some o used sleep on the ares knights. During this time I kept supplying my army with more golems from my new 4 barracks (at this point the barracks in the main base should've been destroyed). Then I went for the barracks in the north side and after that for their fortress, while killing some knights and sleeping others. During this part I failed multiple times, because it seemed like I didn't have enough units to destroy their base, so I think using grunts instead of golems to have less collisions helps a lot here. Finally I went south to destroy their 2nd barracks and the rest of the buildings needed to complete the mission. You should be able to clear the base before all your building are destroyed.
If you're insane enough you could try to build a new base there and attack the other bases for the tomes. I was so sick of this chapter so I left it there. In total it took me around 30-35 minutes to complete it.
So it's like this:
- Help your allies clear the first wave. Train 5-6 peons for extra lumber and to be used to build the 4 new barracks later.
- Build a single tower in the north path(careful with the other bases) to avoid the second wave while getting 2-3 warlocks, 2 catapults, +golems. Build towers in the other paths too and attack the blue base, also build one more barracks and an extra spirit lodge. Make sure you pull the units from the blue base across the bridge so you get more room to kill them. While you're destroying the barracks in the south, send some peons to build a Great Hall, some burrows and a warmill to get some extra lumber.
- Return to your main base immediately after killing all the units in the blue base, defend your base from the waves if the tower trick doesn't work. Train more golems, and make sure you train at least 5 warlocks. Don't train necrolytes, they're useless.
- After the purple wave, clear all the blue knights and the barracks in your way to purple base. Build 4 barracks there and some burrows (to make sure you have enough food when your main base is destroyed). Make sure you keep up frenzy up on your golems all the time while they're fighting. During this time, you can keep trying the tower trick to avoid getting attacked from the other sides.
- UPGRADE your new Great Hall or else you won't be able to train more golems after your main base is destroyed.
- Do the pull at the entrance of purple base. Clear the units from the entrance if they didn't come to attack you in the first time. Use ONLY your catapults to destroy their towers from the outside. This part is very important because it'll prevent your units from being stuck at the chokepoint.
- Destroy their altar before their hero revives. This and the rest are the HARDEST part of the mission, specially if you're doing it in hard mode. If you're bad at micro, try to play the game in normal or slow speed, if it helps. Save and load before attacking in case you fail.
- Kill some units, sleep others and destroy the barracks at the top, fortress after. Consider training grunts instead of golems. Make sure your 5 warlocks are kept alive.
- Finally, destroy the southern barracks and the other buildings.
PD: Great series, by the way. I played the first 3 books a few years ago, and the first 4 missions of the SHB but then I read you weren't going to work on the series anymore so I stopped checking the website. This year I returned to re-download your old campaigns just to find the SHB completed and 2 new books. I was very happy to see that... until I started playing them.
Keep up the good work!
Approved
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