Posted August 12, 2023
A few years ago, I started on a Champion Scenario rampage in HoMM4. I finished around 20 of them in Champion difficulty until I came upon a specific map, Demonary of Doom.
This map was impossible to play on Champion, not because the map or AI in general were too hard or anything, but because you start in a closed space with nothing but your lvl 1 druid and you have to fight 85 bandits (in 3 stacks if Equilibris mod is installed) on your own. You only get summon 4 sprites, summon 4 wolves and stoneskin spells, along with a healing potion.
Naturally, 85 bandits divided to three stacks are impossible to beat here even if you get the leather armor and the bow from the nearby centaurs (which are even harder to beat on Champion).
I looked online but found no info or video on how to win this battle. Sadly I had to accept defeat and finished the map on Expert Difficulty instead. The bandit battle was very hard on Expert as well and I remember winning it with many reloads and fine tunings.
Years passed but this defeat has always been on my mind. So, recently I gave it another go. I said, I could beat it on Expert, why not on Champion. Surely there had to be a way (of course, with no cheating).
So I looked online again but this time, I came upon a post here https://warosu.org/vr/thread/2617637 which says they finished it on Champion but there was no info about how to pass those bandits or if they did it without cheating. I went with the thought that they did it without cheating, so it gave me some hope that there was a possibility to pass that battle somehow.
After many attempts, my perseverance was rewarded. And I went ahead and started this topic for those who also struggle on this battle as well. So, here is how it is done, maybe it helps someone out there. There are a total of 6 screenshots and they exceed 2 MB limit, so I had to upload them to a site. Let me know if the links are broken and I'll upload them again.
First of all, I did not bother with centaurs or the sprites at the beginning because they are just painful on Champion. I just grabbed the mage staff on the ground and went straight to the bandits. Now there is a trick here. The bandit battleground seemed to differ after many reloads, and one of them in particular caught my interest. You can check it here: https://ibb.co/PTWfvD2
If you get another battleground, you need to reload or restart the map until you get this one for the following trick to work.
The part I marked with red has a choke point to the left of it. Just above the charred tree trunk, it seemed only one or two stacks could pass from there. So I went ahead and moved the hero to the exact point that I marked with red. This bit is important because if you move him anywhere else on that area, the following trick won't work (summons will appear on wrong places or bandits will attack from behind the shrubs). Obviously, you need to place your hero to the upper rightmost slot beforehand to be able to go there in one move.
See https://ibb.co/PjM2GJS , I started to summon wolves. Faeries seemed to die faster even though they have higher defense. Stoneskin is also not worth to use here. So, only summoning wolves is the way to go.
See https://ibb.co/Gkxj2pz , if you do it right, only one stack will stay on that choke point and attack you or your summons. At this point, you always defend with your wolves to keep their number high. He attacked my hero, which was no big deal. After this screenshot, I let him attack my hero for one more turn so I could summon one more wolf.
Now at this point, their morale started to suffer, which was really impactful for the remainder of the battle.
See https://ibb.co/DG6S8M5 , I felt the need to use the healing potion here but as it turned out, I did not have to! Because my good boys were strong enough now to close the choke point and defend their master! Important bit here, you need to move the dogs a little bit to bottom-left in order to block the incoming enemy from attacking the hero. Enemy's low morale let me move the dog before they attacked. Otherwise, the next stack enters there and attacks the hero. Moving the wolves is crucial here. And you need to do it exactly like in the screenshot for letting only one enemy in the choke point.
See https://ibb.co/61kbhZN , after this point you just defend with the dogs and summon more of them. And attack and defeat the last stack.
See https://ibb.co/BwKMXQr for the victory screen.
It felt like doing the impossible, even if this is just a game. Feels good. I could even save the healing potion but I did not want to reload again.
I won't bother to write about the rest of the map because no map is impossible in champion if you just wait for your army to grow. I'll use the same tactic here and I'm sure the rest of the map can be finished on Champion.
The impossible bit was the part above, since you have no army.
EDIT: For reference, I do not play with vanilla game. Equilibris mod is installed. I don't think it changes anything regarding the solution I provided above, but it'd be good to mention it. Apparently the mod splits the neutral armies' stacks into smaller stacks according to your army size and formation, so keep that in mind if you wanna try the solution on vanilla game.
EDIT 2 on 14.08.2023: I loaded the game (just before I used the healing potion, check the part above) and managed to beat those bandits without using the healing potion (11 HP and 5 MP left). It was like a puzzle, when you do everything in the correct order, it is indeed possible. So, to sum up, it is possible to beat them on Champion and even without using healing potion.
EDIT 3 on 16.08.2023: I said I was not going to bother to write about the rest of the map but as it turned out, it is impossible to take the first Nature castle as well :)) . 24 Elves decimate you from behind the walls. So here is a solution for you to get your first castle and get things going for the rest of the map.
After going straight to the bandits, getting the 700 gold on the ground and opening the door, go above and get the free Combat Skill. Own the nearby Sprite dwelling, buy 16 Sprites, visit stables below, pass the bridge, go past the Town and take the Windmill (optional). Then, head straight E-SE to the Purple portal. Before going in the portal, take the treasure chest on the ground to the East to get your second skill. I chose Combat skill to become Beastmaster for 6 Wolf Summon.
Maybe you can get Summoning instead and summon Leprachaun (press Alt + E to choose what to summon, if using Equilibris) to cast Luck on your summoned wolves to minimize damage taken. But if you take summoning, I'm not sure if you can take the castle below because seemingly depending on your initial army size, defending army either stays inside the walls or goes out and attacks you. If they go out, you probably won't be able to win the battle even with healing potion, immortality potion and Luck spell. So, we want them to stay inside while we summon wolves with all the mana. I managed to do that by having 16 sprites and 6 summoned wolves. If I summoned 5 wolves (by not being a Beastmaster), they would go out and attack. So there seems to be a specific threshold here and you may need to try different approaches if they keep getting out of the walls.
So, back to the method, after getting the second Skill, head on into the Portal and go out the east side. Take the gold and crystals nearby if they are not already taken. Go South, pass through the trees, then go SW and pass the castle. Here, I saved the game. You can either attack the castle straight away or, send 1 sprite South to get the War Sling off the Skeleton and send the hero and 15 Sprites West to get Death Magic Skill from the hut. I reloaded the game until I got the Curse spell from this Skill. because it is the most effective one at this point (if you get the same skill with every reload, you need to reload an earlier save, better luck from a previous turn or two). Went back to the castle with the army and the lone Sprite, combined them, equipped the war sling. Summoned 6 Wolf, and the enemy decided to stay inside. After that, I just cursed them all except the hero, and summoned wolves with all the remaining mana. Wolves will decimate the defending army and you'll get your first castle. After this, things should be straightforward, vampires for the win.
The important thing here is to avoid wasting time, getting only the important things on the way and going straight for the Death castle like I detailed above. Good luck!
Greetings
This map was impossible to play on Champion, not because the map or AI in general were too hard or anything, but because you start in a closed space with nothing but your lvl 1 druid and you have to fight 85 bandits (in 3 stacks if Equilibris mod is installed) on your own. You only get summon 4 sprites, summon 4 wolves and stoneskin spells, along with a healing potion.
Naturally, 85 bandits divided to three stacks are impossible to beat here even if you get the leather armor and the bow from the nearby centaurs (which are even harder to beat on Champion).
I looked online but found no info or video on how to win this battle. Sadly I had to accept defeat and finished the map on Expert Difficulty instead. The bandit battle was very hard on Expert as well and I remember winning it with many reloads and fine tunings.
Years passed but this defeat has always been on my mind. So, recently I gave it another go. I said, I could beat it on Expert, why not on Champion. Surely there had to be a way (of course, with no cheating).
So I looked online again but this time, I came upon a post here https://warosu.org/vr/thread/2617637 which says they finished it on Champion but there was no info about how to pass those bandits or if they did it without cheating. I went with the thought that they did it without cheating, so it gave me some hope that there was a possibility to pass that battle somehow.
After many attempts, my perseverance was rewarded. And I went ahead and started this topic for those who also struggle on this battle as well. So, here is how it is done, maybe it helps someone out there. There are a total of 6 screenshots and they exceed 2 MB limit, so I had to upload them to a site. Let me know if the links are broken and I'll upload them again.
First of all, I did not bother with centaurs or the sprites at the beginning because they are just painful on Champion. I just grabbed the mage staff on the ground and went straight to the bandits. Now there is a trick here. The bandit battleground seemed to differ after many reloads, and one of them in particular caught my interest. You can check it here: https://ibb.co/PTWfvD2
If you get another battleground, you need to reload or restart the map until you get this one for the following trick to work.
The part I marked with red has a choke point to the left of it. Just above the charred tree trunk, it seemed only one or two stacks could pass from there. So I went ahead and moved the hero to the exact point that I marked with red. This bit is important because if you move him anywhere else on that area, the following trick won't work (summons will appear on wrong places or bandits will attack from behind the shrubs). Obviously, you need to place your hero to the upper rightmost slot beforehand to be able to go there in one move.
See https://ibb.co/PjM2GJS , I started to summon wolves. Faeries seemed to die faster even though they have higher defense. Stoneskin is also not worth to use here. So, only summoning wolves is the way to go.
See https://ibb.co/Gkxj2pz , if you do it right, only one stack will stay on that choke point and attack you or your summons. At this point, you always defend with your wolves to keep their number high. He attacked my hero, which was no big deal. After this screenshot, I let him attack my hero for one more turn so I could summon one more wolf.
Now at this point, their morale started to suffer, which was really impactful for the remainder of the battle.
See https://ibb.co/DG6S8M5 , I felt the need to use the healing potion here but as it turned out, I did not have to! Because my good boys were strong enough now to close the choke point and defend their master! Important bit here, you need to move the dogs a little bit to bottom-left in order to block the incoming enemy from attacking the hero. Enemy's low morale let me move the dog before they attacked. Otherwise, the next stack enters there and attacks the hero. Moving the wolves is crucial here. And you need to do it exactly like in the screenshot for letting only one enemy in the choke point.
See https://ibb.co/61kbhZN , after this point you just defend with the dogs and summon more of them. And attack and defeat the last stack.
See https://ibb.co/BwKMXQr for the victory screen.
It felt like doing the impossible, even if this is just a game. Feels good. I could even save the healing potion but I did not want to reload again.
I won't bother to write about the rest of the map because no map is impossible in champion if you just wait for your army to grow. I'll use the same tactic here and I'm sure the rest of the map can be finished on Champion.
The impossible bit was the part above, since you have no army.
EDIT: For reference, I do not play with vanilla game. Equilibris mod is installed. I don't think it changes anything regarding the solution I provided above, but it'd be good to mention it. Apparently the mod splits the neutral armies' stacks into smaller stacks according to your army size and formation, so keep that in mind if you wanna try the solution on vanilla game.
EDIT 2 on 14.08.2023: I loaded the game (just before I used the healing potion, check the part above) and managed to beat those bandits without using the healing potion (11 HP and 5 MP left). It was like a puzzle, when you do everything in the correct order, it is indeed possible. So, to sum up, it is possible to beat them on Champion and even without using healing potion.
EDIT 3 on 16.08.2023: I said I was not going to bother to write about the rest of the map but as it turned out, it is impossible to take the first Nature castle as well :)) . 24 Elves decimate you from behind the walls. So here is a solution for you to get your first castle and get things going for the rest of the map.
After going straight to the bandits, getting the 700 gold on the ground and opening the door, go above and get the free Combat Skill. Own the nearby Sprite dwelling, buy 16 Sprites, visit stables below, pass the bridge, go past the Town and take the Windmill (optional). Then, head straight E-SE to the Purple portal. Before going in the portal, take the treasure chest on the ground to the East to get your second skill. I chose Combat skill to become Beastmaster for 6 Wolf Summon.
Maybe you can get Summoning instead and summon Leprachaun (press Alt + E to choose what to summon, if using Equilibris) to cast Luck on your summoned wolves to minimize damage taken. But if you take summoning, I'm not sure if you can take the castle below because seemingly depending on your initial army size, defending army either stays inside the walls or goes out and attacks you. If they go out, you probably won't be able to win the battle even with healing potion, immortality potion and Luck spell. So, we want them to stay inside while we summon wolves with all the mana. I managed to do that by having 16 sprites and 6 summoned wolves. If I summoned 5 wolves (by not being a Beastmaster), they would go out and attack. So there seems to be a specific threshold here and you may need to try different approaches if they keep getting out of the walls.
So, back to the method, after getting the second Skill, head on into the Portal and go out the east side. Take the gold and crystals nearby if they are not already taken. Go South, pass through the trees, then go SW and pass the castle. Here, I saved the game. You can either attack the castle straight away or, send 1 sprite South to get the War Sling off the Skeleton and send the hero and 15 Sprites West to get Death Magic Skill from the hut. I reloaded the game until I got the Curse spell from this Skill. because it is the most effective one at this point (if you get the same skill with every reload, you need to reload an earlier save, better luck from a previous turn or two). Went back to the castle with the army and the lone Sprite, combined them, equipped the war sling. Summoned 6 Wolf, and the enemy decided to stay inside. After that, I just cursed them all except the hero, and summoned wolves with all the remaining mana. Wolves will decimate the defending army and you'll get your first castle. After this, things should be straightforward, vampires for the win.
The important thing here is to avoid wasting time, getting only the important things on the way and going straight for the Death castle like I detailed above. Good luck!
Greetings
Post edited August 16, 2023 by Excolion
