[Madam Corvax]

Ignore the neutral units, you can walk past them if you are careful (they will only attack you if your route is marked in yellow, not in green, but I am sure you know that).
Try to get not only to the city, but to the building where you can recruit creatures ( I think there are centaurs and berserkes nearby). You can then increase the number of your army and only then attack the city. Once you get to the city, it's much easier. I remember, I also could not get through the might campaign, and the death campaign is even more difficult.

Try to capture mines and if you run out of cash to recruit creatures, you can trade resources in the market place in every city, but I am sure you already know that as well. I can't remember if there is a marketplace as a separate building in that particular campaign, if there is, use the marketplace rather than the city because the exchange rate is much better there.

I also noticed that in early stages of the game if an opponent is getting close and you are in the city, it is best to recruit all the creatures in the city and then run for your life. Chances are, your opponent will take the city and then go away, leaving very few creatures to defend it, so you can take it back. It can even sometimes save your money on building structures in a city, because opponents usually build citadels and castles.

Some creatures and developments are disabled in earlier stages of campaigns, just to make things difficult your you.

The Order campaign is my favourite, (Emilia the Gassblower's daughter) and actually quite easy.. But the chaos is very difficult

[SimeSublime]

It just annoys me when I'm getting beaten by things out of my control. For example, they start off with a city. I have to sail to an island and kill some pirates before I can get one. Their citys can build 4th level creatures. Mine can only build 3rd. They can get creature pens which allow 50% faster growth. I can't. They have a teleporter that leads right to my second city. I don't have the keyword. So when I take my small army to attack, I leave myself undefended from behind, and they just gate in and take my cities.

[Madam Corvax]

Yeah, the first map of the Might campaign is rather like hide and seek. And Might is not much fun to play anyway, the real fun are spells. Honestly, play the Order campaign. Emilia, Thraj and Solmyr are pretty cool heroes, and even the background story is quite interesting.

[SimeSublime]

I'll give it a try next time I boot it up then. I actually tried that one before, but Emilia got taken out by a rouge arrow fairly early and I lost the game. I mean, It was a simple battle and I only had on death, it was just the one that mattered As such, I went back and gave the Might one another shot.

[Laughlyn]

One of the plus points of the might side\campaign is that you can recruit all the fighter heroes, including lords. I found adding a lord early in the mission helps off set the creature growth, plus they pay for themselves via estates after a while. Oddly enough my friend who I play multiplayer with exploits this tactic to the hilt, recruiting all the portraits as quickly as she can an levels them up at learning stones. Majesty is definately overpowered. I think i prefered it when the castle upgrades effected creature growth.

Between this and the eventual return of my UFO CD, the social life is taking a serious battering. I'm stuck towards the end of the order campaign by an early appearance of black dragons. I don't even have titans to illision (kudos to M.corvax for the excellent tactic). Damn.

[Madam Corvax]

Why thank you Laughlyn, hope you will not forget us in your Heroes frenzy. Anyway, yes, recruiting lords is a good tactic to, especially when there are no gold mines at sight. You don't need to upgade them very much, just a level or two, and then have one to govern each of your towns to boost growth of creatures and have more money. If there are learning stones of trees of wisdom at sight, then you just need to visit them to have additional 200 gold pieces per day and as Laughlyn said, they quickly pay from themselves.

I also usually haul one with my main forces just to get enought experience and then get another one. Only you should not do "quick combat" in such case, because then they are pretty stupid and veture into battles and then get themselves killed.

[Laughlyn]

Okay. my HOMM4 fixation is officially over now. I've managed to delete my campaign savegame by starting a scenario and invoking my annoying habit of always saving in the first slot. Curses!

[Madam Corvax]

Poor you! I hope you won't get discouraged for life. I haven't played it for ages, and then just could not resist getting the gold version with the new campaigns. I am right nown stuck with the new campaign for Chaos with a hero called Spazz Maticus, gee, this is really tough!

<note: I know your birthday is long over, but since you visit this thread, I hope you'll read this...you know, you might pop in to the lobby and thank all the guys who posted you wishes....>

[Laughlyn]

Apologies for the delay on that,but thank you for the best wishes.

Unfortunately my computing was cut short yesterday by a combination some idiot chopping his finger off with a samurai sword (additional moron who came to the party via friend of friend of someone), Vicky deciding to start a fight with the writing duo (I think it was their friend who brought the moron), and the acid causing me to see a from third person; myself looking at the computer screen at a picture of myself myself looking at the computer screen. (ad infinitum)

Needless to say the previous post required a great deal of effort on my part followed by a particularly nasty visit to the hospital where I couldn't stop looking at the 3 headed doctor.....

No more of that stuff for me, I'm staying on the computer where it's safe. Hideous picture of me this morning is already beingused as blackmail

But anyway. Spazz Maticus? did 3do run out of names and just copy and paste from the forums or something. Or does the term Spaz not reach the US?

EDIT: ZX81 keyboard error.

This post has been edited by Laughlyn: 08 February 2005 - 09:38 AM

[Madam Corvax]

I hope you are safe and sound now. Looks rather like a nasty accident. It was your birthday party, I gather?

As to Spazz Maticus - no idea where did they get the name from
However, it might be the problem of my language version. My first version of HOMMIV was a pirate copy in English (tssssss!), but you can't get a legal copy here in English language - all legal games are all translated into Polish (usually very poorly). Maybe some idiot translator thought it would be funny, maybe in English version the name is not so phony?

[SimeSublime]

My friend has it, so I'll try to remember to ask next time I see him. I'm on the second level of the Order Campaign. It's not looking good, Solmyr's army is massive. But if he stays put, I can take all his resources and stop his production. Then I could build something that could kill his 50 Titans. I mean, hell, I can't even touch them.

[Madam Corvax]

Sime, remeber to develop forgetfulness spell! Disables the ranged attack of any unit. Get a couple of heroes with this ability and yout titans can eee.... go to hell.

Anyway, I am pretty exasperated with this Spazz Maticus, but I'll keep trying.

[Laughlyn]

That's the map with the annoying teleport in from behind people isn't it? He doesn't move around too much if I remember correctly. having charm and a bit of luck with the random monsters really helps in that mission (grab some medusa's early on).

[Madam Corvax]

Uff, finished the first map of Spazz Maticus campaign. The next one is pretty tough too, but luckily my hero has now Gradnmaster Chaos ability. The Gold edition as a nice little improvement - you can get scrolls with spells not only when you attack monasterys and kill monks, but you can purchase them in special buildings - can't tell you what they are called, because the names are in Polish, bloody hell!

Anyway, Spazz maticus knows now the lovely "disintegrate" spell, as well as Cloud of confusion, most useful. Ands I developed nice death hero, who knows the "hand of darkness" - hany with 4th level creatures and "vampiric touch" - these are my two favourite death spells.

And there are new creatures - forminable demon dragons or something like that, with life points twice as much as black dragons. WOnder where I can get some, haven't figured it out yet.

And am I the only one who thinks that the icon of vampires look like Keanu Reeves and icon of Ghosts like Mark Hamill?

This post has been edited by Madam Corvax: 10 February 2005 - 02:07 AM

[SimeSublime]

I quite like the vampires. I laugh whenever they say 'Blau!'.