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Second Orc Book of Arkain (Patch 1.29.2 or newer!)

This bundle is marked as director's cut. It exceeds all expectations and excels in every regard.
arkain_2020_x200-png.369838

! No longer updated !
Check out the
True Story of Arkain for updates!


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A Campaign Series made by Shar Dundred

! Requires Version 1.29.2 or newer !
You are not allowed to publish any edited version of any Arkain map! This includes but is not limited to Reforged edits!




Story
While the Orcs had managed to break through the lines of their Imperial enemies, it quickly became clear that their invasion was doomed from the very beginning. The Demons used their attack to further their own invasion and not only smashed through the Human defenders but also through the clans. Now they on the run. A new strategy must be found. Allies must be found.
Command the powerful Orcs and form alliances with those who would ally with your kind in order to become more powerful than any Orc army of the past. Use your new forces to withstand the armies of your enemies and destroy them to survive this war and to find a place for your people to live.
Will you be able to unite all those different factions? Will you be able to maintain peace among your own ranks while fighting your enemies or will you fight not only against the enemies of your kind but also against your own? Only time will tell.


Campaign Series Info

The Legends of Arkain is a campaign series which takes place on the world Arkain.
The races of Arkain fight against the demon invaders, who try once again to enslave every being on Arkain. The Humans, the Orcs and the Undead will have to make a stand against them... or face complete annihilation or enslavement by the Demons.
This campaign series will consist of actually three different series. There will be a Human, an Orc and an Undead campaign series. They will all run in the same timeline but will present three different stories and outcomes. When they are all finished, it's completely up to you, who wins this conflict.
Those, who win the war, will write the history.

You like the campaign?
Click here to see the progress of the series!

Click here for the First Human Book!
Click here for the First Orc Book!
Click here for the First Undead Book!


Click here for the Second Human Book!
Click here for the Second Undead Book!

Let's Play made by @Jayborino!
Features
- Three different storylines/campaign series
Take control of one of the three factions, the proud Humans of the Empire, the plundering and strong Orc Clans or the mysterious Undead Nexus and their endless army of the dead, and face the demonic invasion as well as other struggles that await you.
- New units
Command units, you already know, as well as completely new units with new upgrades and abilities.
- Decide the fate of Arkain
At some points of the campaigns, you'll have the opportunity to decide things, that affect the storyline, characters and sometimes even the chapters you play or how you have to play them. By doing or, well, not doing certain side quests, you can also affect the campaign.
- Three difficulties
You can play the campaign in either easy, normal or hard difficulty, just like in the original WC3 campaigns. It will impact on the AI difficulty and scripting as well as other minor changes.
In easy version, for example, the AI won't rebuilt lost buildings.

- Full Jass AI
In this campaign series, every single AI is written in Jass instead of being created with the AI editor. This makes the AI more intelligent.
- Universal hotkeys
All abilities, units and buildings use QWER hotkeys.
- Race Mechanics
Every available race has its own unique race mechanic to improve gameplay - and, in some cases, to add new ways influencing the story.

Characters

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Rangul
Growing up as a usual member of the Deathbreeze Clan, Rangul's abilities and his dedication to his race along with his strength made him rise up the ranks of the clan quite fast until he became the first and most trusted lieutenant of the chieftain. Rangul sees his race on its way to utter extinction and dreams of a realm for his people. A strong realm that would prosper and serve as staging ground for many invasions. Dedicating his life to create this realm himself, he planned to not only be the successor of the chieftain but to also unite all other clans under his command, sending them against the Kingdoms of the Humans. Their lands would be taken over and used by the Orcs who would then become more than simple marauders and pillagers.
However, his plan has one major hole: The Demons and their constant attacks. While Rangul thinks that his people could be powerful enough to defeat some demonic army, he has yet to come up with any ideas on how his people should wage war on the Kingdoms on the one side and defend against the Demons on the other.

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Amari
The chieftain of the Cliffhunter Clan, Amari, was born as the daughter of Rangul. While women in the Orc society were forced to stay at home and take care of it and the children while the males were fighting, Amari wanted to prove to her father, whom she knew was more tolerant towards new ideas - him adopting a human girl was perfect proof for his. She secretly gathered a few other members of the Deathbreeze Clan and went on a mission to gain his trust. However, she was betrayed and forced into exile - like all Orc women who were unwilling to "stay home". The fate of an exiled female was often death. However, Amari did not want to accept that fate. She sneaked her way through to the Kingdoms where she met other exiles and together they founded the Cliffhunter Clan - a clan consisting of all Orc women who had been exiled by their clains. Therefore the Cliffhunter Clan is considered an exile clan by the other Orc clans - and therefore hardly even considered a real orc clan.
Amari and her followers raided the Kingdoms for a long time, with Amari being smart enough to keep her clan moving instead of settling anywhere to avoid being detected by the armies of the Kingdoms. Since the foundation of their clan, the number of exiled Orc women has increased dramatically, showing that there are many women who want to fight. Amari promised to herself that, one day, she would make the other Orc clans accept her clan and reform the society of her people regarding females.

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Sasrogarn
Sasrogarn is Rangul's eldest son and a strong spellcaster - like his father. He is Rangul's left hand and one of the few Orcs who already know of his plans and supports him. Sasrogarn shares the dream of his father and has sworn that he'd carry on his dream in case his father dies. But he doesn't share the patience of his father and approves of taking a more direct and aggressive approach. This seeming eagerness for war has not quieted the whispers that the son of Rangul is a weakling and coward, however.

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Grofzag
Being the son of Ephrog, Rangul's closest advisor and ally, Grofzag grew up together with Sasrogarn, the two being friends ever since their birth, being even born on the same day.
Unlike his childhood friend, Grofzag has always been a strong and respected member of the Deathbreeze Clan. When he was still considered a child, he ripped out the back of a wolf that was trying to eat him and used it, to punch its rider, a member of an enemy clan, to death. Grofzag staying at his friend's side is often considered the only reason why Sasrogarn is even still alive, for he saved Sasrogarn's life in battle several times, providing the strength and brains his friend lacked.
While proving that he possessed the brutal strength of most Orcs, Grofzag is considered far less simple-minded than most others, including his close friend Sasrogarn - the friendship being the one thing whispered to be the only mistake he has ever made, so far. He also is one of the few members of his clan who respects the human Vanessa.

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Vanessa
Vanessa grew up as the daughter of a lesser noble in the Human Kingdoms. When she was five years old, the mansion of her father was raided by the Deathbreeze Clan. Due to the absence of her father, they managed to defeat the guards and take everything they could find. Somehow, the girl wasn't terrified by the strange creatures and didn't hide. She was found by the Orcs and their leader, the young Rangul, decided to take her with him instead of killing her. She grew up among the Orcs and was even accepted as a member of the clan - at least by the chieftain and half of the clan. Many dislike her for still being a Human instead of an Orc. Still, she dedicates her life towards Rangul and the Deathbreeze Clan.

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Commander Daric
The mercenary commander Daric spent many years in service of the Empire, putting down revolts and uprisings in many regions both in the Empire and the Kingdoms. For his service and his ingenious tactics and strategies, he had been rewarded with lands between the Kingdoms of Salria and Rengar. However, Daric refused to take any noble title and instead had decided to continue using his title as a mercenary commander, focusing on taking down the enemies of the Empire.
It is said that Sir Lerrig Goldheart has hired Daric to make up for Lerrig's own rather lacking strategic skills. While Daric himself considers Lerrig a poor tactician, the experienced mercenary acts professional and respectful and is the one keeping Lerrig's men in line - though now many soldiers began to say that things would go much better if Daric was in command instead of Lerrig.

Click here to learn more about the other characters!


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Initial Release

General:
- Scrolls of Healing now require a Fortress instead of a Black Citadel, making them purchasable now

General:
- Fixed Zarok
- Pechan no longer costs food in his Robo Goblin form
- Fixed Air Form ability tooltip of Warmechs

Chapter One:
- Fixed Korjaha's dialogue

Chapter Nine:
- Fixed tooltip for Red Drakes and Red Dragons

Chapter Ten:
- Fixed New Units message

Chapter Thirteen:
- Fixed description typo

Chapter Fourteen:
- Fixed description of the main quest

Epilogue:
- Fixed a special effect not appearing at the end of the cinematic

General:
- Renamed Orc Frigates to Destroyers
- Fixed the message for completing one part of a quest with multiple quest requirements in all chapters
- Reduced the movement speeds of Warmechs in air form
- Duke Redfist is now wearing the Scepter of Healing

Chapter Four:
- Fixed the hotkey of Rock Golems

Chapter Thirteen:
- Grofzag now starts the chapter with the Hammer of Kome and keeps it for the following chapters

General:
- War Mills now use the BETA model & icon of the Orc Lumbermill
- Rock Golems now require a Spirit Lodge instead of War Mill

Chapter Six:
- Replaced the building models used by the Darkmind Clan buildings to fit both the weather and their "renegade" status
- Added slightly more snow terrain

Chapter Thirteen:
- New model for Orie Redfist
- Replaced the building models used by the Dominion to better showcase their new organisation
- Changed the names of some edited buildings
- Cannon Towers are no longer available
- Orc Watch Towers have been upgraded:
* Higher gold cost
* Weaker version of the Cannon Tower attack against ground units in addition to the attack against air units
- Pig Farms have been replaced by Burrows for Clockworkers
- Spirit Lounge is no longer available but also not needed as all caster upgrades are already researched

Chapter Fourteen:
- Replaced the building models used by the Dominion to better showcase their new organisation
- Changed the names of some edited buildings
- Cannon Towers are no longer available
- Orc Watch Towers have been upgraded:
* Higher gold cost
* Weaker version of the Cannon Tower attack against ground units in addition to the attack against air units
- Pig Farms have been replaced by Burrows for Clockworkers
- Spirit Lounge is no longer available but also not needed as all caster upgrades are already researched

Chapter Fifteen:
- Replaced the building models used by the Dominion to better showcase their new organisation
- Changed the names of some edited buildings
- Cannon Towers are no longer available
- Orc Watch Towers have been upgraded:
* Higher gold cost
* Weaker version of the Cannon Tower attack against ground units in addition to the attack against air units
- Pig Farms have been replaced by Burrows for Clockworkers
- Spirit Lounge is no longer available but also not needed as all caster upgrades are already researched

Epilogue:
- Slight dialogue adjustments (including a scene at the end where Aridon uses the REAL name of the Master of Shadows)

General:
- Reduced repair cost of Goblin Merchants
- Pechan now has a unique item, allowing him to place Goblin Landmines (endless charges but with cooldown)
- All versions of Finger of Death and Finger of Pain can no longer target units and buildings allied to the caster

Chapter Twelve:
- Pechan now has some land mines to protect his base

Secret Chapter:
- The enemy bases now make use of several land mines to bolster their defenses
- Vanessa's Gem of Health has been replaced with a Gem of True Seeing
- Increased the hit points & mana of Vanessa by 300 each
- Increased the maximum & starting hit points & mana of Zelech & Fox by 300 each
- Replaced the building models used by the Dominion to better showcase their new organisation
- Changed the names of some edited buildings
- Replaced all Cannon Towers with Orc Watch Towers
- Orc Watch Towers have been upgraded
- Several units of the Dominion have been replaced with more powerful units
- Sand Dragons now start with their upgrade researched
- Several dialogue changes

General:
- Increased the hit points of Axethrowers from 420 to 500
- Added Redfist banners to every chapter featuring the Redfist

Chapter Four:
- Removed the northern (LB) and southern (Purple) entrances to the Grey base
- Changed the ownership of some units to avoud Grey sending out defense forces to attack the player
- The base of the Royal Army on the other side of the river no longer gets attacked by Demons (neither does the player if the Royals are killed)
- Small terrain adjustments to make some choke points less effective for the AI
- Stronger defense for Grey
- Players now share vision with the Demon waves

Chapter Six:
- The last enemy base will no longer replenish any units in the fortress apart from the Elites directly protecting it
- Replaced a few items carried by enemy heroes
- Players now share vision with the spiders
- The Darkmind Clan will now spawn AI controlled reinforcements in regular intervals to support your offensive
- Slightly moved Aedale's buildings at the entrance of the fortress away from it

Chapter Eight:
- Minor changes to some tiles in the starting area
- The Deathbreeze Clan will now spawn AI controlled reinforcements in regular intervals to support your offensive
- Increased the amount of starting units
- Increased food limit by 10
- Fixed the lack of level, abilities and items of the dwarven hero

General:
- Shieldbearer Changes:
* Decreased the damage dealt by Shieldbearers by 3
* Decreased hit points from 1500 to 1100
* Decreased food cost from 6 to 5
- Increased the food cost of Red Dragons and Sand Dragons from 8 to 10
- All workers now start with Repair activated automatically
- Increased the intervals between the attacks to make it less likely for several attacks to occur at the same time
- Minor model adjustments

Chapter Five:
- Grammar fix in the quest log

Chapter Six:
- Choosing Blen now results in all Towers & Burrows of the Orcs getting destroyed to make tower spam less likely to hurt yourself
- Corrected the name of Captain Gregor
- The Captains Gregor & Elias who have been with Blen since the first mission of the First Human Book now stay if you choose Blen over Rath
- The flames in the ending cinematic now are also properly displayed if Blen is chosen
- Human towers will now shoot their enemies correctly after the cinematic if Blen is chosen (the rest of the bases will remain passive)
- Some (by far not all!) of the defensive forces now belong to the base next to them, meaning that some of the defensive troops will be reinforced by nearby bases
- Replaced some units around Harmos' base with units of the Order of the Flame

Chapter Seven:
- Fixed the message regarding the new units
- Slightly increased the number of units for the Stonelord Dwarves and the Salrian Army
- The Redfist is no longer displayed in the score screen

Chapter Eight:
- Fixed the Knights of Salria not being able to train Paladins
- Adjusted the attack times of the enemy bases to slightly decrease difficulty
- Increased the strength of the attacks coming from the Knights of Salria
- Decreased the time in the ending cinematic until Zairmak uses Finger of Death
- Flammedus' Centaurs are now controlled by an AI
- Doubled the amount of resources gained for completing the optional quest in Chapter Seven
- Cliffhunter Clan starts with Centaur Hooves already researched
- The Deathbreeze Clan (Player) has been replaced with Ravaging Fire Clan to make colors more distinct
- The Ravaging Fire Clan starts with Burning Oil already researched
- The Ravaging Fire Clan starts with Golem Power already researched
- The Cliffhunter Clan no longer has access to any Orc units (apart from female ones)
- The Ravaging Fire Clan no longer has access to any female Orc units or any race allied to the Orcs apart from Golems (and Bearmen if recruited)
- Moved Magic Vault to a new position between the two bases of the player
- Both the Ravaging Fire Clan and the Cliffhunter Clan are back at a maximum of 100 supply instead of 80
- Replaced the Merciless accompanying Thorn with a new unit type
- Increased the hit points of Commander Thorn by 1500
- Cassius now also trains Mercenary units

Chapter Nine:
- Fixed the message regarding the new units
- The Ogre Legion now joins the fight against the Moghtar once the avalanche has been caused by higher powers and will also train more units to join in
- Improved the graphical effect of the avalanche
- Sand Dragons & Sand Drakes in this chapter no longer cost any food

Chapter Ten:
- Doubled the interval between the summoning of new Fire Golems after the initial summons
- Slightly increased the time for the first group of Fire Golems to be spawned
- Decreased the number of summoned Fire Golems
- Increased the intervals between the attacks to make it less likely for several attacks to occur at the same time

Chapter Thirteen:
- Added some defensive units

General:
- New model & icon for Sir Praxeus "The Holy Bastion" Braelon

General:
- Fixed Batrider model for newer versions of the game

Chapter Thirteen:
- Increased the gold in the inital goldmine
- Added a second goldmine to the player base
- Tweaked AI attacks
- Seperated the bases of the player and his allies by trees to avoid the AI walking through the player to attack the allies
- Increased the lumber per tree from 50 to 300
- The Redfist Elite, a faction of the Bloodstone Dwarves & the Redfist (not the Redfist Vanguard) remain passive until certain conditions are met
- Tweaked the target change for the allied AI

Chapter Fourteen:
- Tweaked AI attacks

General:
- Final (hopefully) fix of the Batrider model for newer versions of the game
- Several AI tweaks

General:
- Several tweaks and fixes (including changes that fix some bugs caused by newer Blizzard patches)
- Changed & Replaced several unit types and hero models to fit their kingdom/faction
- New model for Shieldbearers (courtesy of @HerrDave)

Chapter Six:
- Replaced Brutes with Firestarters
- Added Force Walls to Greymoore's base to avoid the player from rushing to trigger the choice too early (the Force Walls stay until all other Castles inside are destroyed)
- Added a Sentry Ward to the second gold mine
- Added a Fountain of Health on the first level of the castle

General:
- New model for Duke Redfist (courtesy of @Rhapsodie)

Chapter Twelve:
- Bonelords now have the "Ancient Bone Armor" which reduces all non-Hero damage by 50%

General:
- Several grammar improvements

Chapter Four:
- Renamed the Imperial Army to Wolf Regiment
- Changed the color of the Wolf Regiment to Coal
- Changed the class of Elaine the Beasttamer from Ranger to Mercenary Ranger

Chapter Eight:
- Fixed ghost Flammedus in the ending cutscene
- Changed the class of Elaine the Beasttamer from Ranger to Mercenary Ranger

Chapter Twelve:
- Expanded many ingame dialogues, especially the Bonelords' (a little foreplay to the Bonelords Expansion that will be part of the True Story of Arkain)
- Renamed the Bonelord's factions from Rohir Nexus to Scarec Nexus
- Changed the color of the Scarec Nexus to Snow

Chapter Fourteen:
- Minor building movements



Models & Skins:
Blizzard Entertainment
67chrome
epsilon
Wandering Soul
infrenus
Tauer
AndrewOverload519
Mephestrial
Dojo
PrMosquito
Hawkwing
Em!
dickxunder
acagnip
Uncle Fester
Frankster
Mc !
IamMclovin
AhhFreshWeeD
Sin'dorei300
Elenai
Kuhneghetz
CloudWolf
alreadyused
Dark Hunter1357
Dmitry Rommel
Kitabatake
Shar Dundred
RazorClawX
Uljimasa Hojo
eXciTe
Sellenisko
frostwolf
-Grendel
Skipper
Deolrin
gookywooky
Callahan
BlinkBoy
Hueter
Coinblin
supertoinkz
SuPa-
Tarrasque
Power
Afronight_76
chr2
olofmoleman
imforfun
Deolrin
Pyramidhe@d
HerrDave
Meteor_demon
kangyun
Kael Theron
PROXY
JetFangInferno
JesusHipster
Makoodzaka
Rizz_Boomer
Arowanna
deepstrasz


Icons:
Blizzard Entertainment
Uncle Fester
CloudWolf
xylign
SkriK
CRAZYRUSSIAN
Darkfang
GreyArchon
67chrome
Fjury
PrMosquito
INSEKT
Muoteck
dickxunder
Frankster
CloudWolf
Kuhneghetz
Elenai
Heinvers
Shar Dundred
Uljimasa Hojo
SinisterX
Darkfang
Hemske
Palaslayer
NFWar
Hellx-Magnus
Justicebringer
Sin'dorei300
sigelang
Mr.Goblin
Mythic
antihero
Sellenisko
-ToasT
jigrael
Just_Spectating
APproject
Pins
Eagle XI
kangyun
-Grendel
BLazeKraze
Mc !
Kael Theron
Stanakin
JollyD
The_Silent
-Berz-
chr2
olofmoleman
San
Scias
Akolyt0r
Peekay
Edge45
ChevronSeven
4eNNightmare
Arowanna


Campaign Preview Screen:
Heinvers

Campaign Logo:
Mythic

Campaign Chief Development Tester and Grammar Genius:
Kasrkin

Additional Testing:
Championfighter25
LISBOAH


Everything else made by:
Shar Dundred

First Supporters:
Theoden of KoMe
Chen
youness
Kasrkin
kakuzu
BandolXD
Heinvers
Imperator
Veritas 117
PlankingWolf


Please contact me via PM if I forgot to give you credit for your resource!



To Blizzard Entertainment for this great game.
To Turnro whose great campaigns inspired me to revive this old project.
To Jayborino for his enjoyable let's play projects of the Arkain series!
To all who supported this project!
To all who reported bugs and gave/give constructive feedback both during and after the development!
And very many special thanks to Kasrkin, who supported the creation of this project in many, even countless ways!



Feel free to post your suggestions, opinions and questions!
Please report any bugs!

Keywords:
Arkain, Legends, Legends of Arkain, LoA, campaign, series, Gardon
Contents

Legends of Arkain Second Orc Book (Campaign)

Reviews
Daffa
One of the Hosted Projects. In addition, I have personally played the demo versions and they are well-made. Unless a major bug is reported in this particular version, I don't see why holding out approval status for this map given the sheer amount of...

Pick your favorite characters


  • Total voters
    135

Shar Dundred

Community Moderator
Level 72
Joined
May 6, 2009
Messages
5,862
Version 1.30 - Father Redfist Update released!
Special thanks to @Ujimasa Hojo, @HerrDave and @deepstrasz for providing models for this update!
The full changelog has sadly been lost therefore I have not listed all changes.

General:
- Several tweaks and fixes (including changes that fix some bugs caused by newer Blizzard patches)
- Changed & Replaced several unit types and hero models to fit their kingdom/faction
- New model for Shieldbearers (courtesy of @HerrDave)

Chapter Six:
- Replaced Brutes with Firestarters
- Added Force Walls to Greymoore's base to avoid the player from rushing to trigger the choice too early (the Force Walls stay until all other Castles inside are destroyed)
- Added a Sentry Ward to the second gold mine
- Added a Fountain of Health on the first level of the castle
 
Level 1
Joined
Dec 30, 2019
Messages
3
In version 1.30 I have found the bug in the first mission after killing Korjaha the Hunter win condicione trigger doesn't work. I'm using the latest patch (1.31.1.12164).
 
Level 2
Joined
Jun 5, 2016
Messages
12
There’s a bug on the mission where you first play as zairmak, it’s stated that the blue base in the optional quest gets attacked by demons but they never seem to. I’ve tried changing the difficulties but to no avail. But overall I love playing the campaign, very well made and great story!
 
Level 3
Joined
May 13, 2019
Messages
27
What happened to the Orc Island after it's burned. Will the Redfist army garrison a small part of their on the Orc Islands, or abandon them to a wasteland
 
Level 8
Joined
Apr 25, 2020
Messages
55
Very nice. In terms of story I might prefer the human book more, considering the ending seems to be more complicated than just happy victory for the faction, but it still works as a kind of redemption story for the orcs. Dealing with their past sins (Redfist) and such.
 
Level 2
Joined
Mar 29, 2016
Messages
7
Hmm ok, you know, where can i download working classic client? In my account battle.net, available is only reforged version, now.
 
Level 11
Joined
Jul 29, 2014
Messages
328
Guys, has somebody been playing this or any other Book of Arkain on a hard difficulty? Or do you know if there are videos on YouTube? I'm in a mood to see some real WC3 skills first hand, because the one who managed to beat this increadible campaign on hard is definitely a god of WC3 :peasant-thumbs-up-cheers:
 
Level 1
Joined
Feb 18, 2020
Messages
3
I find your words clearly that you don't want to see other versions.But my friend translated the language from English to Chinese without any modification of your original version,which just want other your Chinese fans to play it without language obstacles for free.He said that him got your allowance.Do you remember it?Because most of Chinese fans love your all your series of Arkain.If he didn't get your allowance,I will tell him to delete the Chinese version.
 

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Shar Dundred

Community Moderator
Level 72
Joined
May 6, 2009
Messages
5,862
I gave permission here, so it is all good. :)
I do not want language barriers to limit who can play this project and I am surely not going to be able to translate this into most languages myself.
I only ask that translation is the only thing that is done - and I would still like people to message me before they release this in other languages.
It is too avoid having like 200 translations for the same language.
 
Level 11
Joined
Jul 29, 2014
Messages
328
How can Vanessa ally with Redfist against the Tribal Dominion and Aedele Redfist? I kinda wanna know how the story will go.
You have to rebel against the humans every time, including the events of the First Orc Book. When you start the Second Orc Book campaign and when you have to choose the events that you've done in a First Orc Book, choose the events that are against the integrity of the humans. Than, throughout the campaign of the Second Orc Book you must always choose to kill/destroy any human forces you ran into. That way, Vanessa will ally with the Redfist, saying the orcs are nothing more than pillagers and murdering beasts with no respect.
 
Guys, has somebody been playing this or any other Book of Arkain on a hard difficulty? Or do you know if there are videos on YouTube? I'm in a mood to see some real WC3 skills first hand, because the one who managed to beat this increadible campaign on hard is definitely a god of WC3 :peasant-thumbs-up-cheers:
@Jayborino if I am not mistaken have finished this on Hard.
 
Level 2
Joined
Jun 6, 2020
Messages
13
Hi, I'm new to this forum and would try to play this campaign on my Warcraft TFT 1.27b. It works on it or there is any version i can get to try this?
 

Shar Dundred

Community Moderator
Level 72
Joined
May 6, 2009
Messages
5,862
Version 1.40 released!

General:
- Several grammar improvements

Chapter Four:
- Renamed the Imperial Army to Wolf Regiment
- Changed the color of the Wolf Regiment to Coal
- Changed the class of Elaine the Beasttamer from Ranger to Mercenary Ranger

Chapter Eight:
- Fixed ghost Flammedus in the ending cutscene
- Changed the class of Elaine the Beasttamer from Ranger to Mercenary Ranger

Chapter Twelve:
- Expanded many ingame dialogues, especially the Bonelords' (a little foreplay to the Bonelords Expansion that will be part of the True Story of Arkain)
- Renamed the Bonelord's factions from Rohir Nexus to Scarec Nexus
- Changed the color of the Scarec Nexus to Snow

Chapter Fourteen:
- Minor building movements
 
Level 5
Joined
Sep 16, 2019
Messages
80
So i have reached the second Orc book . I would characterise it as very Interesting at least.
Plot is excellent and game rises in complexity.
I am currently playing between a hard place and a rock.
This is my least favorite map of all books so far.
I dont really understand why the fuck someone would try to build a base between
7 human bases ... Or did they actually sleep for a week and realised that 7 human camps were build around them?

It felt the same with the dwarf elf map surrounded by orcs in the 1st human book i think.
But you had backup and allies there.
What a mayhem!
Back to our current mission...Constant attacks from all sides some times 3 at the same time with heroes and fuck me sideways units...
while i fight with rock golems with 850 hp and shamman without blood last. The best skill i guess is frenzy and skeletons but
these units were frail as fuck.
And towers.... really they dont do shiat. Worthless to try and build them. Literally waste of money...
I took as fast as i could the blue base to establish a 2nd income which i managed in 2 trials and suffered heavy loses in order to succed.
Ofc I split the armies and heroes in order to defend and attack at the same time as if you leave the base for a minute you will find half a base when you return.
Anyway, Hard but doable up to this point.
I tried to coordinate my task forces with the deamons to take the teal base and gained some ground
against red. But they rebuild it so it was pointless to keep trying to complete both optional quests at the time.
I focused on teal which was standing in my way or so i felt... After taking teal i made a small force and send it to the north
which boosted the deamons and finally red base was down by the deamons.
I didnt want to kill red but i thought i could defend better as the human forces
would be obligated to counter the deamons attacks.
Then i tried to expand in teal position replacing his base... not a good idea. I became a sandwich that the humans
and deamons seemed to enjoy. After that i thought, lets wait the deamon attack on purple
and follow it up with an 85 supply army but the narrow spot at the entry of the base is favorable to the human side.
Tried to pull them out and fight in a more favorable position for me but next wave of deamons came and i enjoyed a second doublepenetration.
Hints are offered but actually are really unimportant.
I finished the map with 3 buildings and peons. Ofc the deamons finished the job.

It took me 6 hours of trial and error to figure out the strategy and several reloads to complete this mission.
I almost never reload. I think i did twice up until this map. One i mentioned previously and 2nd was Gardon
and the rebels. I played all books in hard difficulty till now but i must consider playing normal mode i guess.
Anyway....
I cant strees enough how much i found this map unenjoyable.

Worst part is that i felt forced to chose for the first time an option that i didnt want. To help the deamons...
I am sorry if i am a bit harsh. Just a lill frustrated as i feel that the logic of this quest is questionable .
 
Level 7
Joined
Aug 5, 2018
Messages
62
Waiting for new maps in the True Story, I decided to try out the Second Orc Book. Of course, I played in hard, as I had completed the human books previously with that difficulty.

Chapter 1 :
Going across the map to kill the enemies is slow until you can get to the fountain of health (in the east, I took the long way around and couldn't use it for the longest part). Some fights are rather tough, but pulling away a few units work well, and with 2 heroes even if you lose some units you can't really fail the mission. In the 1.30 version I had, the main quest failed to complete. But with 1.40 it worked fine.

@Shar Dundred One of the drops in this chapter is random (either the +15% attack speed gauntlets or the +2/+2/+2 item). Campaigns should stick to non-random drops, I think.

Chapter 2 :
This mission require a mix of skill and patience. The worse your skill, the more your patience matters. On my first completion, I didn't manage to save many units from the first group, and as I went to explore the map using the invisibility spelll... As you can guess, the second group of orcs to rescue was completely slaughtered. So I had almost no assistance for the hero, and clearing up enemy groups required endless hits and runs. Truthfully, I could have skipped most of them and just focused on killing that one unit that holds the key to the goblins. Worse, I put a skill point into the aura, which was not useful.

On my second playthrough, I acted aggressively to save as much of the first group as possible. The tactic is simple : try to hit as many enemy units as possible with your heroe, One eye. The passive poisoned dagger bonus will inflict a lot of DoT AND will reduce the enemy's attack rate a lot. By hitting as many enemy units as possible (one hit is enough), you maximize DoT and reduce the human's DpS a lot. This helps the orc units to survive and kill human units. Number is a big strength, 20 units suffer very little losses to crush 10 units, so there is a strong snowball effect in this fight. You should also attempt to pull out weak units that are focused by the humans to help them survive, but how many you manage to save this way depends on your micro skills.

I cleaned isolated groups of the very strong Redfist soldiers to level up. Upon levelling up, I put another point into the poisoned dagger skill, as it makes it even more powerful. The strategy with the second group of orcs is the same as with the first, rush with your hero to hit as many different units as possible, send in your forces to help overwhelm the humans, pull out weak units to help them survive...

All remaining human groups can be eliminated through hide + go in the middle of the group + poison a few units quickly + hide again combos. Having saved a lot of units merely allow you to send them to overwhelm the human soldiers without having to weaken them all first. You can also rotate units that have most of their HP and units that are weak, leaving the weak ones to heal instead of involving them in fights. Sacrificing these orcs when you see fit allows you to speed up key fights a lot, as One eye takes a lot of time to recover HPs between poison hit and runs.

Chapter 3 :
Attacked on two sides and by three enemy bases, with an ally attacked by three enemy bases from three sides...

I made a few attempts. It became quickly clear that the attack waves are so frequent than the initial tower locations are bad to hold against attacks from both sides. Pulling towers much closer to your main base helps, but is not enough. I could barely hold, and was too gold-constrained to really build big tower walls and go high on pop. Towers don't do that much damage against enemies either and get destroyed extremely fast.

I tried trackers and warlords, but it didn't work. Outrunners were not even a consideration, they cost almost the same as warlords and are much weaker. Next I tried warlords and necrolytes. Chain lightning isn't bad, but necrolytes have a bad tendency of getting exploded by catapults. You can avoid this with micro, but when I'm busy spamming W + click on an enemy unit with the occasional misclick on a friendly melee unit + using my hero spell, I inevitably lose some necrolytes. Worse, there is no way to heal whatsoever in this mission, the base heal is so slow it might as well not exist when considering how frequently your units have to fight.

Meanwhile, your ally will require some help. Not a lot of help, but when its army get destroyed, there is a serious danger of two or even three attack waves stacking, including their heroes. The units that get newly produced can't repel the enemy fast enough in these situations. A few towers here and there, in spots where they don't get destroyed on priority but inflict good damage, go a long way to help. Sending Rath when needed will also do a lot, with his aura, tankiness and damage output.

I got frustrated enough by the very frequent strong attack waves that I went to look on this forum for how others had dealt with this mission. It felt more difficult than any mission in the second human book.

After this, I followed some tips to go Cyclops + warlocks. At the start, as usual I made a bunch of lumber peons and researched relevant upgrade, sent all units to the spot of the first attack wave, but also trained a catapult to destroy trees. How fast you can go through the trees seem to depend on your micro and how much you focus on the rest of what's happening. At least, I tried to shift-click the zone attacks and it did nothing, so I had to go look myself. Someone with better micro could probably get to the cyclops sooner than I did.

Getting a few units without having to spend gold is great. The cyclops overlord has a great aura, too. There is an item to grab there, but I couldn't send Rath there until later. I immediately began producing new ogres in the ogre mound. After some more defending, I rushed the western imperial army base, as it's a safe expansion and allows to focus defending on one side only (nothing worse than multiple sides to defend). I had to use some save reloads to get my timing right and to adapt my battle micro, but the warlock spell giving +75% attack rate in exchange of HP is very worth it on cyclops. As always, towers, castle, peasants, barracks are the focus to destroy the base. The Cyclops overlord got wounded enough that I had to put it off first line combat for half of the rest of the mission. I had to send some troop back to avoid my main base being crushed, and barely repelled assaults.

Once I got the second gold mine rolling, things got much better.

I massed cyclops (the single ogre mound in the corner is a real limitation, I had to produce warlords from barracks placed closer to action at multiple points throughout the mission to have new fresh warriors ready faster to replenish losses), had a bunch of towers in a place where there is space (non-cannon towers are BAD at holding chokepoints because of siege. They are great in open area where you can have lot of them and where your units can rush down siege more easily). Without any way to heal units, it took a while to get my army and defense back in shape, especially as I had to rescue my ally a few times. The top-right royal army base sometimes sent attack right at me, which took me by surprise the first time. Their hero is especially annoying. My solution to this was to have a peon build a few towers in the path that they had cleaned of purple units/buildings. This way, later waves would attack my towers and move where purple would attack them.

Rushing down the second imperial army base was not easy with royal army attack waves coming to their help. The top-right royals also wiped out my fortress and half of my original base (the gold mine was out of gold by this point anyway, but that also meant that the collection rate had slowed down and massing took much longer). But after I finally got the second imperial base down, pressure went to much more manageable levels.

It was only a matter of time before the bottom-right base got erased, and with then three gold mines to exploit, resources stopped being a bottleneck. Crushing the remaining human bases was very straightforward.

@Shar Dundred Mission 3 suffers heavily from the "decreasing difficulty" syndrome. The difficulty before taking out the western imperial army base can be described as "insane". It drops down to difficult after it, to medium with the second imperial army base out, and to easy once the bottom-right royal army base has been taken care of. Incentives to not remain passive at defending make missions more dynamic and interesting, but insane pressure (to the point of being very frustrating in a mission where you're supposed to actually push out, not just defend for as long as possible) morphing into, if you manage to survive, a slow but easy grind, is not so. If the bottom-right royal army troops arrived a few minutes into the mission, building their base soon enough to not allow denying it (maybe add elevation against catapult cuts) but late enough that you are spared their 2 first attack waves, the start of the mission wouldn't appear so stupidly difficult compared to the middle part. Meanwhile, I wouldn't mind the royals at the top deciding to retreat (thus giving you the chapter win) after you've wiped out say 4 out of the 6 human bases (if your ally is still alive), cutting down the time spent to convert the guaranteed easy win. There is no special item or anything to collect in the top bases anyway.

When resurrect is used on units of a previous attack wave, it also seem to trigger "base defence" reactions, which is probably a bug ?

I've already played through chapters 4 and 5, more comments on those coming later. I think chapter 4 started with a very interesting concept but suffers from issues in execution.
 
Level 7
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Aug 5, 2018
Messages
62
So let's review chapter 4.

Some background

Warcraft 3 as a game is very good, but it's not perfect. The 12 units in a control group limitation is one example of annoyance that can appear. Another is pathing and collision.

Pathing and collisions may be the single biggest issue across the W3 custom campaigns I've played. In the W3 design phase, large tanky melee units were given a bigger ground hitbox. This has a clear advantage: the frail casters and ranged units can be sheltered behind the frontline meatshield and keep doing casting or ranged damage. If it was easy to go through the enemy melee front, focusing down ranged units would be a no brainer and tanks would be pointless. Managing to sneak another unit group behind to flank wouldn't have the same value as it has now.

This has also a massive disadvantage: your units keep blocking each other.

When you have a large open space to work with, this is bearable. You can design your base to have space to move quickly from one entrance to another. This is also more tolerable if your units have a smaller ground footprint (but they are worse at protecting ranged units then).

But when space is narrow, your units keep hitting each other. They are much slower to move the same distance, pulling a frontline unit out of battle get very frustrating because it gets boxed in by friendly units that you also have to order to pull out, and it give a general sense of poor control over your units. Instead of doing what you want, collisions keep getting in the way, and in some maps this is deeply aggravating.

If I were charged to work on W3's gameplay, I would use different "friendly hitbox" and "enemy hitbox". The concept is to simulate that your units would try to block enemies from passing, but would try to give space to go through to allies. Stacking around an enemy unit to attack it would remain limited by the "enemy hitbox". This would keep the "melee meatshield" benefits, but would reduce massively collisions as you try moving your units around.

But W3 doesn't work like this, so missions must be designed to minimize the issue.

To give another example, naval battles are cool on paper. Until you realize that the absence of a defender advantage that's usually given by buildings make them into massive unstrategic snowball affairs. There is not a single RTS where naval gameplay is more interesting than land gameplay because of this. While air works pretty well in land maps because the defender advantage still applies. So the solution is to not make maps where naval battles are more than a side-distraction.

Chapter 4 of the SOB isn't the worst map I've played in this regard, not even close. But this mission is hellishly difficult. In an easy mission, the added annoyance spoils some of the fun. Here, it doesn't just contribute in making the mission insanely hard for someone without great micro (I do use many keyboard shortcuts and spells, try to pull out weak units... but I don't have great APM, and I will never spam sleep/soulburn fast enough), it contributes making it a frustrating chore.

In some Arkain chapter, difficulty can be the trigger to think outside the box and find cool strategies. In the SHB dwarves mission, I promoted a "give up your main base" strategy. In the "save Gardon" mission, I used arcane towers reveal to be able to kill shades and lay waste with invisible units. Sometimes I had to rethink my unit mix. It's satisfying when you make it work. Chapter 4 didn't give me this. It reminds me of the SHB 14A rain of fire spam in past versions that railroaded a single composition that didn't die to it while unlucky attack wave stacking could make you lose by force.

The mission

Your forces have been isolated from the bulk of the orc army, and you are trapped in a bad spot. To the East, the demons are attacking and the royal army is desperately trying to hold them off. To the south and north, support bases by imperial regiments are focusing on holding off the demons. To the west, two imperial regiment and Daric's mercenaries want nothing but to wipe you out !

I love this premise, of having two major threats that also keep each other in check and give you a chance to slip between the droplets.

Unfortunately, it plays out quite differently.

For all intents and purposes, the phoenix and bull regiment bases, and the demon attacks, might as well not exist. You DO NOT have the manpower or time to take them out while you're being attacked by three bases. You can complete the related sidequest if you are a completionist and want to grab the tomes, but realistically you will only do so after having already wiped out the dragon regiment (just keeping a token building alive to not complete the main quest) and are under lowered pressure. If you attack them, they will start sending attack waves your way as expected, so taking out their castle and peasants is bare minimum, but really you want to wipe out some production buildings too because you won't be able to sustain being attacked by 4 bases.

The main royal army base has lost its purpose. Some of the in-game text doesn't match what happens in the mission. The demon waves attacking it have been removed. The idea was to reduce the mission's difficulty. But this also hurts the story-telling. Humans are supposed to fight desperately to hold off the demons, and that's why they can't fully focus on wiping your orc base out. That's why two imperial regiments have been sent to fight demons only.

Also, a lot of the improvement on difficulty compared to the initial release comes from the health fountain. No demon waves on the royal army base is a mixed blessing. Sure, you're never attacked from there and if you take it then it's a safe expansion. But the hardest part of the mission happens before you've secured a second gold mine. As in chapter 3, the start is insane, but this time around it's more difficult to take out an enemy base to get a second gold mine and reduce attacks, so you risk getting stuck in full-defense mode where you barely manages to get enough gold to keep defending, but without managing to get this extra margin to push out. Demons attacking the royal army base would make taking it out easier. You would need some time and resource to tower-wall it. Towers are very weak against the human compositions full of melee units with defend and with siege, but they are very effective against demons. Maybe giving only one entrance attacked by demons would be a good gameplay/story/ambiance compromise

Some dialogue taunts between demons and human commanders could also help with the setting.

I made a number of attempts in hard, but every time I tried to push out, my western defences got flooded. Reduced defence meant that the grey attack wave was much slower to eliminate, and the black attack wave arrived before I could clean them. Even with my main army back, losses would be unsustainable.

How hard the humans actually focus on taking out your orc base make you quickly forget about this whole demonic invasion.

The only realistic way to win is to quickly take out an enemy (preferably purple), but this is much tighter than taking out the western imperial base in chapter 3. Taking out purple is also the main quest objective. While it's actually interesting to have a mission where you might want to think about whether or not you should complete the sidequests, having them only viable after having effectively completing the main quest isn't so good. Not only is taking out red or teal too hard, the demonic attacks will have very limited effectiveness at weakening purple and black. Furthermore, if you attack purple after having already destroyed the Bull regiment base, the demon will attack you from behind and make it harder, not easier, to take out the Dragon regiment's base.

In the end, I switched the difficulty down to normal. I may have been able to make it work in hard with enough save reloads and hours spent on it, but I'm not a masochist.

I built some defences at home (I got attacked once by black from the northern entrance, then never again. My towers there served only much later when I had taken out red and demons attacked there) and went for a golem + warlock composition.

Axethrower are too weak, shamans are complete trash because they don't get bloodlust in this mission, so the only realistic choices are grunt vs golems and necrolytes vs warlocks.

Grunt :
+ only 3 food
+ less collision issues
Golem :
+ Much higher dps (also key to take out enemy buildings)
+ slightly more survivability

Necrolytes :
+ Chain lightning helps to take out melee frontlines
+ their skeletons can deny corpses for purple's resurrect
Warlocks :
+ The 75% attack speed on golems makes a huge DpS difference and the damage can be healed away
+ The stun can be useful to stop starfall. It's less useful for pure damage compared to chain lightning

I went with Golem + warlocks as my main composition.

After repelling the initial attack waves, I took out the royal army troops/barracks/towers to the south on the way to purple's base. After a few more attack waves, I built up my troops to max food and had advanced towers towards purple to be able to have a much shorter delay between eliminating their attack wave, luring the bulk of their army out, killing their hero, and actually pushing into the base.

The entry chokepoint is very annoying. Destroying the boxes around the towers and cleaning up the two towers was important to help. I also tried to have my unit move deeper into the base before engaging the fight, with the +75% attack speed boost on. Destroying the castle and altar was the main priority, as always.

In normal, attack waves are much more forgiving than in hard, so some golems and towers can hold their own well enough until your main army comes back.

The teleport spell of your second hero is also very useful to come back to defense.

Once purple was cleaned, except for a token building, I could build a base, float much more gold, and from then on it was a grind to take out blue, black, red, teal (in this order).

Nonetheless, the main base layout with its unholy chokepoints contributed a lot of frustration, like in my hard attempts except it wasn't bad enough to make me lose.

First, the chokepoints at the entrances of your base. If you have more than a few melee units, many won't be able to fight effectively there. Chokepoints are great at slowing down attacks, but they are not universally to the defender's advantage. In real life settings, siege sucked badly or defensive siege could outrange and control offensive siege, but in W3, who it helps is very situational.

As previously mentioned, the ranged units we have access to in this mission are complete garbage, especially as the enemy melee units have defend that make them extremely resistant to axethrower. So the chokepoint can not be exploited to have mass range units sniping enemies while a few melee units are enough to block the path.

The human ranged units are actually much more viable, and the chokepoint make it hard to reach and eliminate them. It also make it much harder to reach their siege.

What about towers ? They do little damage against anything melee, and even with manual retargeting their effectiveness is limited. They don't have much health so siege or heroes can destroy several rather quickly. And unlike units, you can't use the fountain of health, you need a worker using up resources for repair.

The main effect of the ramp-chokepoint against the main waves is actually to slow down the pace at which you eliminate them, which leaves you less time to recover until the next wave or to go out of your base.

I said it in my comment about chapter 3, the best configuration for towers is actually a quite open terrain where your units can quite easily go snipe siege and you can have a large front of towers without preventing your melee units to engage. In "between a rock and a hard place", if you want to place 20 towers many of them will have trouble ranging enemy units. So while towers do provide some defender's advantage, they are harmed, not helped, by the chokepoint at the base entrances.

Pulling out your units from the fight to send them to the health fountain is also made much less reliable, which was my major gripe with how W3 handle friendly collisions and pathing, as I had to give many orders to have units move aside so that the one weak unit could flee.

At the western entrance, the best strategy is actually to concede terrain and build your towers much closer to your fortress. Space is more open there, which helps defending. It will endanger your wood exploitation at many points, though. At the southern entrance, you have much less space to work with, so this is hardly a solution.

The lumber point hurts movement between the western and southern entrance, at one point I destroyed it myself to get rid of the annoyance. The health fountain is extremely helpful, but it's far from your most attacked entrance so enjoy having to move troops back and forth and colliding in the process. When timing is very tight, the seconds wasted here eat on your patience.

Nonetheless, the sheer amount and strength of the attacks you face, without respite, is the main culprit of the mission's insane difficulty. Demons do nothing to help distract black or purple from time to time, the mission is definitely not giving the feeling that humans are fighting for their survival and barely repelling the demonic onslaught, they seem to have plenty of resources to just focus on your puny orc base, even before you've taken out any human base and shown you're actually dangerous.

The constant level of the attack waves also makes for less dynamic opportunities than strong attack waves and moments of respite mixed in the normal attack waves.

I have been mostly working from memory, so some details might be inaccurate, but unlike some famously difficult missions of the SHB (like missions 4, 5) or even the mission 5 of the FHB without an ally (on my first playthrough I had some confusion with how to call for an ally, so they never came, but I actually managed to win after a crazy playthrough. This was with 10/7/5 upkeep, too, I mined 100% of the gold on no upkeep while defending, before using my stockpile to push), this mission 4 left a bitter taste.

I could probably spend a few hours trying again, refining details, managing to get all the right build order/timing/micro at the start to take out purple very early, then spend some more hours to complete the sidequests, but in the chapter's current state, it would be more of a chore than a tough but rewarding challenge.

@Shar Dundred I noticed that from the main menu, the map name when loading a save doesn't match the chapter's name. The description before the chapter starts only loosely matches what happens later. It seems as if you wanted to do what's in chapter 5 there, then got the idea for the actual chapter 4, but forgot to change some details.
 
Level 1
Joined
Feb 24, 2021
Messages
1
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.


358jnlT.png


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.

WprCgwA.png


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.

dsHaPXu.png


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. :grin: Keep up the good work! :piru:
 
Level 20
Joined
Dec 19, 2013
Messages
1,083
@Fruit123

Oh this one is notorious for an unfair Ai I remember just buckling up and building grunts i feel like Golems are an waste of resources on this one they do about the same damage as grunts but tank for longer so i decided to go grunt spam instead of Golems, the blue base is weak and can go down in one attack if managed properly, the issue is the god dam base with the hunter and her star fall. After you take over the blue base you can even downright abandon your starting base, a good way to cheese the Ai is to keep an eye on the two regiment bases the phoenix and the bull if I remember correctly wait when they are attacked by Demon legions and then try and rush their townhalls and eat on them slowly up until there is nothing of their base then the Demons will focus the purple and the base with the hunter and give you some much needed breathing space.

Glad to have you back there is lots of material for you to go through !!
 
Level 3
Joined
Jul 23, 2021
Messages
2
I'm getting my ass kicked for 3 days straight, courtesy of chapter 4, and as soon as I finish it, I come here and see all kinds of strats, specifically for that chapter. AAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

I love this campaign, and chapter 4 especially, even if I had to reload a ton because my lack of micro didnt help with unit collision. Thanks for all your work.
 
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