I need help defeating Monster Guards my opponent fields (manticores, giant spiders, basilisks etc.) in every freaking province it owns (the death worshipping fanatic). No matter what kind of army I build seem to be able deal with them effectively and gets destroyed. Also none of my regular guards can deal with his heroes so he takes over a province or two and installs monster guards there, retreats and comes back to take more. Our border is too wide to defend with the couple superguards I have and I can neither affort nor have time to fortify it before there's other breaches and I have even more provinces to defend. Last shard I was lucky and was able to use harbors to lake hop to province next to his castle and defeat phoenix guarding it but now he owns around half of the map while I own about the same.

The map is bad for me as there are no horses nor mandrake near me (only wood, iron and marble) so my progress was slowed down quite considerably. Also I did not found any remarkable treasures to help my heroes. I don't even have allies (could get only either halflings or lizardmen). What I have is midling level heroes (archer above and warrior below 20 level, wizard level 10), tier two spells and troops and best (master?) gear buildings. I'm playing good so no necromancy/summoning or evil units.

I'm thinkin of abandoning the shard but I'll have to face my opponent again later so I need advice how to defeat his guards in order to progress. One that does not rely on lucky finds or allies/special recruits. I know I can trash them if I just happen to find legendary gear or say, minotaurs, but as right not, I may not find anything so I need strategy that does not rely on luck. So, any good advice?

Easy mode:
either find basilisk set for warrior - or wait for event with wounded phoenix, kill him and make cloak (poison immunity).
There is variant of killing enemies without poison immunity - you need to kill all spiders with round attack in 1-2 turns(before they web you) , then cast vampirism and hope for the best.

Not so easy:
1. Sniper must kill manticore with 1 doubleshot. (you can bless him with monk)
2. hire mercenary dwarf or try to explore forest provinces and hire dryad. These units can get poison immunity, would be able to tank slug shots for you.
3. you must win initiative.

optional:
monk - can cure poison
mass slow - T3 spell, would let you to kill all manticores before they reach you.
spider - best disabler.
crossbowmen as cannon fodder

Mass suicide - devastating spell against this guard.

PS: can you upload savegame? Probably map0.cmp and game0.cmp, if you play on default profile.

My warrior could beat the three manticores if that's all there was, my archer would most certainly do the same but there's full complement of giant spiders, giant slugs and salamanders (or what ever those stoning lizards are in this game). Neither of them can survive all that as spiders/lizards will web/stone my heroes and keep doing it until poison/acid will kill them. I can't affort losing entire armies and resurrect heroes in order to first weaken them and then kill what's left. I neither have the income/funds nor the time as enemy's two heroes keep taking my territory and my side is way too open to properly form fortified line. The enemy is also going to strip me off horses and mandrake soon so army expenses would skyrocket. There's also the fact that his heroes are going to become stronger and stronger as they take my land so it'll become harder and harder to keep them in check and they'll be able to take even more territory before needing reinforcements.


I'll see if I can upload the save later. I can't attach it here due to save being about 6 MB packed with 7-zip.

I only have tier two spell schools (fireballs, lightning, stoning etc., actually there are currently no shards visible with better schools) and haven't found any useable high level spells... or gear for that matter. I could get cavarly guard or guard guard but I'm not sure if those are any better than Men of War guard I already have. The shard I'm currently competing has all the good tier 3 unirs (I don't use evil units) but I've found only the knight(?). I do have executioners too from earlier but won't use them.

What I need is stategy that does not rely on lucky finds. Obviously I can win any shard if I get lucky to find good set, great bow/crossbow, good tier 3/4 spells or what not but I can't always rely on those to win now can I?

Then if you get your wiz to 20 and high initiative that would still do, after fireballing the manticores you could use the knight as tank.With stone skin and word of life he should be able to hold off the rest of the monsters long enough to fireball the slugs at least.Maybe the occasional heal and astral energy.
But I do realise its pretty annoying to level a third hero to 20 that late in the game.

You can let AI make road to your demesne, he will ignore all other provinces and will besiege it. Then just catch him here. Currently you give him free levels on your guards, they are useless, honestly.

Sniper can take on monsters guard with monk +3 guardsmen:
monk sniper guard
guard guard
In top left corner.
Doubleshot manticores, if they survive, they wouldn't attack guardsmen anyway because of first strike. Now kill slugs, then spiders and finish leftovers. Monk useful for curing poison and giving stamina for doubleshots.

It's really funny to have this setup as it's just upgraded 3 Swordies+Healer. Sadly though you really need to level the Monk up first with the swordies as otherwise he cannot help the Guardsmen that well. Or Guardsmen with the Healer which ever you get first.

Oh and in regards to Jamo and the 3rd hero leveling. This is why I like to make my 3rd Hero the Warrior with first being Wiz and Scout 2nd. Solo warrior is easy to level with very basic gear unlike the other 2 and since they need armies to protect them unlike Warrior who can easily solo and therefore get all the exp for himself.

I do that, too now, warrior as third is very comfortable, give him all the supergear and press F10. Just used a warrior with the Phoenix Cloak Gremlion mentioned and he got the "let them leave" option at level 16 solo for the monsters guard. He was level 30 after like 20 more guards.

Well, thanks to AI stupidity, it started attacking my only fortified provinces in the our ~15 province border (only 3 had forts) allowing to slay their heroes and give me time to find enough good stuff and grind xp to become powerful enough to take on the monster guard. I also found all 4 3rd tier unit scematics. But that Cloud of Terror is seriously OP. It essensially turned rest of the game into simple slaughter as it almost onehots entire enemy army. Had I had two, it could panic even enemy heroes (it reduced morale by 18 in hands of my wiz). I REALLY hope I'll never face enemy wizard with that spell as even if I won a battle somehow, morale is pain to restore.

But now I also pretty sure that the AI cheats shit ton as no freaking way could they affort the upkeep of 40-50 monster guards. That's 1800gc+80 crystal to 2250gc+100 crystals upkeep PER TURN. How the hell could AI possibly affort such an upkeep when they also have to keep rezzing their heroes and rebuilding their armies constantly and their main heroes were constanty attacking me? They even managed to get second wizard before the end! Can someone eplain to me how AI can affort all that and more without cheating?

Most level 4 spells are OP with an Archmage. Also no spoils if you let them run.There are worse things enemy heroes can surprise you with if they get the initiative. Like immediately popping Armageddon or White/Black Magic killing off half your carefully leveled healers/artillery.
To prevent that I get all the initiative items I have and cast vulnerability and then pillar of ice on them. Even if they have like 15 resistance you can usually freeze them for 2 turns or so. Obviously only viable with an Archmage, a Scout would be boned since most enemy heroes of similar level have more HP than you can doubleshoot in turn 1.

As far as affording the guards go...don't know, maybe he had amassed alot of cash because the game was so long, or maybe the AI can generate more than 500 gold interest per turn, or maybe they just get some bonus for guards. But I have seen the AI be broke, not ressurecting all of their heroes and or not placing guards.

Yeah, the seer hag was like that in this map. She did not manage to even breach second ring around his fortress and had barely any guards or buildings set up when I reached her. Actually all three other lords were pathetic. Only reason the one I faced firts lasted so long was that he managed to put phoenix in his castle and minotaur guard on his horses (huge setback for me really) and then I met the death worshipper and was too busy to send heroes to finish him off. Still I've wondered few times if same rules apply to AI that apply to player as I've seen AI employ high cost/high maintenance guards on all it's provinces before. On the other hand I usually only have good guards on border with the AI's and the healer guard/fairies (to keep mood up) everywhere else as that's all I can affort to upkeep. There's also the fact that all AI forts are usually full of guards and more can't be recruited once under siege.

Cloud of Terror is the one scroll I'm always looking for.

I've looked at this using the income monitoring from my cheat table. One AI enemy had 11 Mercenaries guards (12 gold upkeep) in the provinces I could see alone, but had expenses of less than 100 gold, which was probably mostly his unit upkeep for 3 heroes that were visible. This leads me to believe that the AI probably pays nothing at all for guards upkeep. In any case, the AI is definitely cheating with expenses.

Yep AI cheats with their guards no doubt about it.

Also it's ridiculous that I can walk over any of the enemies heroes but the monster guards are extremly tough and when they have every single province guarded by them the game just becomes super boring and tedious.

Did anyone even try to balance this game? It's a great game but a lot of the overall balance is just sooo bad that it's really frustrating.