I really need help on this level. It the one where you have to destroy Borgh's Castle, but start with no town.

I just have no idea how to do it. I make some advances at the beginning, but then the defenders just overrun me, push me back and that's it. I keep getting reinforcements, but they can do nothing.

The crappy pathfinding isn't helping any! Even putting speed on lowest, doesn't help.

This is very frustrating.

EDIT: This level finally made me decide to abondon Normal and restart on Easy. It was beatable there.

Oh my! No replies! :((( I used saves from the previous level an spent about two days leveling all three heroes up to 150+ levels hoping that it would help to beat this mission, yet I didn't succeeded anyway. I don't want to restart on Easy. :( I can't believe there is no tactics to manage this level. There should be something.

I was reluctant to restart on Easy but it really made all the levels much less frustrating.

There are youtube videos of that level being beaten. Not sure on what difficulty; they didn't help me. But maybe you'll get some inspiration.

I'm sure these videos are made at easy level. Their armies just advance with little directions control. It didn't help me either. I've managed to beat the level though. But I would say, it was a miracle in some way and definitely it is the toughest mission in the game, yet... other just a bit easier. :))) As I said, I had very powerful heroes of about 200 levels each. Yea, I spent about two days grinding. :) All of them could alone stand against an army, but it didn't help me with direct or iterational attacks. I haven't enough time for healing. Eventually, I put all the forces to the south gates after a few waves I send all the army to the evil castle. The main army distracted these evil mages who knocked my heroes very quickly, and heroes attacked the castle. After about 5-6 attempts I have succeed.

Heh, what a beautiful and wonderful game indeed. I would pay a lot to have it's sequel or another game with so many attention to details, style and atmosphere. And it's shame that GOG, who are specialized on adopting old games to modern OSs didn't enable resolution scaling by default.

Happy you finished it. Congrats.

I don't know if any of you guys will read this, but I've finished the level on Normal and want to share few hints. Maybe it will help someone. My approach is very slow, but it can assure victory. The key is to pace yourself and beat the enemy step by step, tower after tower, building after building, wall after wall. It's a freaking Battle of Charm, for those who get the Black Company reference.

#Prerequisites:
- Rescue the priest two levels before. I would not imagine beating this level without some divine help.
- Train your heroes beforehand. I was starting the level with Ghirion lv52, Sartor lv26 and Wollin lv17. It's funny, that the old, saggy mage did see most of the action, while two others were mainly chilling in the castle :)
- Use slowest setting, unless you have godly APM
- Save. A. Lot. And use multiple save slots. It might happen that you run yourself into unavoidable disaster (say, enemy warlocks are raining fire on your troops like mad and your priest is on the wrong side of the map). It's better to go back one third of the game, rather than start it all over.

#Overview:
- The starting armies are on the west, south-west and south (already engaged). I've decided to withdraw the southern army and shorten the front.
- Rather than attacking the castle, I was focused on defending and preparing for the push. Fight can be divided in four stages.

#Phase one: get a foothold
- Get peasants to safety and engage in southwest. Set hotkeys on your heroes, so you don't lose track of them.
- Withdraw southern forces and move them west. Try to save at least catapults, they will be very handy later on and cannot be replaced. Notice that AI will try to build barracks and other buildings on the south edge. You will have to watch for that later on.
- The two western armies can attack and this is the last time when A+click charge will work.
- While attack is ongoing, snipe the enemy towers with catapults, but make sure you don't lose them.
- When towers are gone, take over the castle with your peasants. One or two farms as well, if you can manage it. Other buildings are optional.

#Phase two: build up and defend
- In this phase you need to start gathering wood (there is plenty of trees west of castle) and build a perimeter of towers around your castle. You can also build storage in the south and gather stone for better towers.
- Until you get your defenses, go easy on the attack. The most important task is to establish your economy and your tower grid.
- Watch our for enemy counter attacks. The two most crucial units are Priest and Ghirion. Priest should focus on mages and golems, while Ghirion can lightning enemy ballistas and kill soldiers (at higher levels he two-shots almost everything).
- To counter enemy warlocks (rain of fire will wreck your army) you need to snipe them with Priest. He has long range, but needs a spotter. You might find pikemen useful for that. Send one or two forward to give you vision while rest of your army engages the enemy in range of your towers.
- Ghirion and Priest should be in action all the time. Keep Priest in the back, so he can heal Ghirion and engage Warlocks, when you spot them. Sartor has limited use in sniping catapults and Wollin can be used as spotter.
- Save often on different slots. This is the hardest part. One minute you thins you are fine, next one half of your army is roasted in rain of fire.

#Phase three: make units and push forward
- When you have enough wood gatherers, make fields and start getting food. Build houses west of castle and barracks north of castle. This is the safest spot. I was using mainly longbowmen and pikemen (spotters for enemy warlocks) and footmen when I had excess food.
- At this time you want to make your towers in vertical line and push it from west to east. On the north side go towards second enemy wall, but not to close. You can use no-mans land as a perimeter and the enemy wall actually works to your advantage - it channels enemy units and makes it easier to spot warlocks.
- Leapfrog towers and move very slowly eastwards. You can use your catapults to destroy enemy towers from afar. Don't lose them.
- On the south side you need to see that AI does not build barracks there. I was sending an army of longbowmen and footmen or macemen and I did establish tower grid near second gold/stone mine.

#Phase four: push through the second wall
- When the south end is secured, it is time to push beyond second enemy wall. Use catapults to kill enemy towers and push your tower grid westwards. Spam units, because you will lose many of them to warlocks. Try to keep Ghirion and Priest at front, but safe.
- Many, many towers later you will get enough ground that enemy will not have barracks and you will choke him to death.

#Closing notes
- I had an impression that the more buildings I set up, the AI was the less active in the south end. Maybe there is a limit of buildings, I don't know. Or maybe it was a coincidence.
- The tower formation can be glimpsed in attached screenshot.
- Good luck!

Idk if someone will read this but there is actually one way to beat this mission really easy.
1º As one usar said u need to safe that priest from the previous mission, without him this is ridiculously hard.
2º This one is the tricky that make this level actually really easy put the speed of the game in very low with the - and choose all ur troops that are in the three flanks and put in the one what is ghiron sartor woolin etc.
3ºWhen all ur troops are in that and u conquest the castle that doesnt have really good protecion do a direct atack put the catapults first and make ghiron and the priest kill the bad guys while ur troops cover them and done.
If you do all this, the map is actually really easy.
More than it cool looks cuz it looks hard as hell if u dont know the tricky.
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/618771065459703816/737360698736246874/unknown.png

You definitely didn't win this at hard level :) The idea is about withdrawing armies from east and west is right, but this map is not easy at all, the way to win it is to slowly but surely move building after building, mage by mage, golem by golem, tower by tower.

Priest is THE KEY, the most important guy you have. 2nd most important is mage. These 2 can kill armies on their own if you can micro it right.
Tip: you can just left click very fast with your priest to heal mage asap. Then remember to put him back on hold so he doesn't heal, he just stands near your mage, who should be the frontline, and waits for another mage or golem to appear on the horizon. Yes, you're gonna have situations where wild mage appears from the fog of war and casts the rain of fire : ) Happened to me dozen of times. But thats why you have to SAVE YOUR GAME.

Tip2: You can kind of cancel mage's attack animation and make him attack next unit much faster if you simply control his attack. When he auto attacks there is a small delay after he kill a unit before he switches to the next target. Same for the PRIEST GUY.
Tip3: When the wave is huge, freezing spell is the answer. You can cast one and 2nd about 5 seconds later, use it wisely to hit big groups and then focus on those you couldn't hit.

Whenever there is a mage on the horizon - YOU KILL IT WITH YOUR PRIEST. <---- THIS is THE MOST important. There are several moments when you have to micro it well.

SAVE THE GAME AS MANY TIMES AS YOU CAN if you feel like you made some progress.

Use those short moments when they don't attack to regroup your army, put archers together, create a frontline, make a pass for catapults, have your heroes grouped under ctrl + numer(create a group for each of them).
AND PUT THEM UNITS ON HOLD :D Remember, after every time you move they will do whatever they want. Its super frustraiting(also heroes). So press this hold the position button or whatever its called.

When you destroy all the enemy buildings in the west(outside of the inner wall) you can use your peasants to build lots of houses + ~4 barracks, I would say produce only basic footman but do whatever works for u.

There is one very difficult moment, the last wave when mage says enemy is at full power. This wave is quite huge but if you hold it, you won. I had my main army actually standing outside of the castle to push the wave coming from the east outter wall. Inside the castle there was just a small army to protect the catapults and only mage + priest(wave inside the castle is also big, but if you micro priest and mage well + a small army, then you got it).
As i said, mage can solo kill whole armies as long as you take care of enemy mages(1st priority) and golems(2nd priority).
Balistas are probably 3rd priority as they do quite some damage.
Heal mage(or other hero) with fast clicking on him whenever your priest is at 100 mana : )

Put most of your units on hold, they can't move on their own.

Micro your catapults so you don't lose them, you need them to clear the way forward. You don't need them to kill the castle as they don't do too much damage, but they are very useful to destroy enemy barracks and clear the towers(AND this god damn mage tower at the back of enemy camp, it's to the north-east ;))


One last tip - there are spots on the map where enemy army just stands on hold so if you attack a tower with your catapult, they all move at u. Be prepared for it when you go inside the enemy base.


And yep... beating this level on hard feels like its impossible at first but satisfaction after that makes your week xD And i will never ever do it again, one in a lifetime experience of gaming frustration : )