When I replayed campaign, I usually picked scout, 3 swordsmen, and healer/fairy for astral energy. This way I could rush tiny shard in 10-20 turns with strategist+tactic awards, with something in the line of 400-600 glory per shard.

For Explorer you need 1000% combined, this needs 20-30 provinces explored to 100%.

Oops, I meant for Cartographer.

I doubt I could pull of this "rushing" business without a whole lot more study of strategy and tactics :)

Heh, this is the best I've done so far, glory wise:

I think it's pretty impressive that you seem to play without any reversions.

I had one or two the previous game.

Basically I only revert if I make a mistake when it seems like it may cost me the shard. And in defense missions - after my previous loss, I decided to ALWAYS revert in defense missions if my hero dies.

200 battles and 0 veterans :(

That's really good self control! I revert even when I lose an experienced unit! Usually have 4-8 reversions per shard. I want to play without reversions, but it annoys me so much when I stupidly lose some great unit, usually due to my mistake.

What's a Veteran Unit anyway? Level 10? 20? 30?

Yeah, I don't keep units alive very long... But that's ok because my main force is always the Warrior(s), and they only need backup for the really tough fights (dragons/hydras/cults) and sieging equipment, in which case I just create an Outpost and hire the expendables. I also use autocombat most of the time - games take too long as it is. End up losing more units that way then I probably would otherwise with mages, scouts & commanders.

New record btw: 330 battles and 6 Heroes :)

I think veteran is abow 10, undead excluded (too easy to raise as mage)
Second campaign shard

http://i44.tinypic.com/153418w.jpg

Wow, Tactician is the one for no units lost in combat? I don't think that reward is for me...

Edit: here's the kind of thing I'm talking about. I my defense, my Archer did promise to "crush them"...

Edit 2: misspelled "pyrrhic" but too lazy to fix.

Hey, I got some this time! (still autobattling all the time, guess the commander was just that good)

Btw do Veterans only count towards score if alive at the end of the shard? Same for Collector award - does a Hero only need to wear it at some point, and could even lose some pieces afterwards, or is it needed at the very end?

You need to equip set once for collector. Yes, only alive veterans count (easy to get some points - hire mercenary from high level tavern, I have seen 14 level sometimes)
Also, Horse archers better than centaurs, ballistas and catapults - they have doubleshot, can be healed and revived.

Thanks!

My units usually don't stay alive long enough for me to worry about how they upgrade, and I don't go in much for healing because that requires a lot of micromanaging, and my healers tend to be the first to bite the dust. I mainly just try to keep one per hero to aid in health recovery between turns. As for Reviving - Clerics are too expensive, and Catapults pack a mean punch :).

At level 0, Centaurs seem to be better all around, and they were significantly cheaper since I was lacking wood for a looong time that game, and for some reason wood price doesn't seem to factor into their hiring somehow.

I agree on the ballistas and centaurs, but I'm not sure if I'd classify them as better than catapults for two reasons- range and armor piercing. Catapults have a great range to begin with, which can also be upgraded. While horse archers can compensate for this by closing the distance to their target, this can put them in range of enemy units (both ranged and fast melee), while catapults can stay safely out of range while pelting things on the other side of the battlefield. As for armor piercing, for units with a low ranged defense double-shot from a horse archer with a couple of good medals can do quite a bit of damage, but once you start dealing with units with higher defense that damage can get reduced very quickly. Between armor piercing and the high base damage it's been my experience that catapults can still deal good damage to units that even high level horse archers are only doing minimal damage to.

However, if there are additional considerations that I'm missing I'd be eager to hear your own analysis.

Ranged units in Eador are at support position, you can't effectively play with them. There are too many possibilities to take damage during battle, like fire ball from mage, or fast manticore with 5 speed, elf+fairy, and so on. Damage sticks to them. They heal very slowly, they get penalty for <50%hp somehow, and their effectiveness capped at ~20 damage/round, maybe 40 with astral energy.
There are much more useful things for T3 slot. Cleric - for revive, dispel and heal across the battlefield. With cleric in your army you can put horse archers under fire. Minotaur/Executioner for dealing with tons of meat, round attack does wonders. Even knights and griffins can be used more strategically than catapult (as bait for slow units). Mage opens so many possibilities with enslavin mind (like sacrificing enslaved unit, or getting roots after counterattack)
Catapult is simply not worth T3 slot in any decent army. Just look at T2 units in attachment - I can put any of them in the middle of battlefield, and they would deal more damage than catapult due to counterattacks. Thug is especially scary with his Crushing blow.
As for horse archers - due to mechanic of Charge they can deal damage even to ghosts, damage from Charge is added to total damage, so on practice it can be the only damage dealt.
gtg, maybe I would add something later.