Count Kromire: The Conquest of House Michbie

[Velensk]

From the sounds of it, you're doing it wrong. I'll try to post a replay of the first scenario (on hard if you want).

If the celestial leader is doing 12/10 damage, you should not be attacking him, you should be letting him attack you and waiting until night.

EDIT: Here's the replay. I'll admit I got uncommon lucky on this particular try but if you're playing on normal you should have more bloodborn and fewer enemies. The trick is to not rush killing the therian leader or trying to attack the celestials too early.

[Caphriel]

I just did the first 3 scenarios on this campaign on normal over the last couple days, to see what all the fuss was about, and Michbie was the easiest of the three, in my opinion (and the only one I beat without restarting). I think I have the replays, if anyone's interested, but my thoughts are generally as follows:

Don't engage the therians during the day, especially the cat therians. I didn't kill the leader until around turn 20. Use your plague attack whenever possible to kill the peasants. I moved up to the top village in the snow first, and set up a backstab for when the unit popped, and that's all I did the first night. Taking is slow was important

Devlings was probably the hardest scenario, because no matter what, you can't help the Oathkeeper until turn 3, and the only help that arrives that early is first-turn-recruit bats. In particular, she died several times before my bats arrived, and on one notable instance, died on the first enemy turns. Her survival is heavily dependent on the nailers failing to hit her; the time she died on the first turn, it was because she kept getting hit, the killing the nailer with the counter-attack, opening the hex to another unit. My advice to anyone trying this is to restart immediately if the Oathkeeper takes significant damage in the first round of attacks, because you're probably wasting your time otherwise. I only succeeded on the try I did succeed because I had two strong bats, and got lucky (5/6 hits on a cursor to kill it with 3 bats). She'd spent that entire try hovering around 10hp after the first turn. However, other than that one problem, this scenario is an experience gold mine, and I went into Michbie with several level 2 units, and several units about to level.

I started this scenario with Kromire about to hit level 3, two other nobles, one or two half-bloods, one or two (depending on the other one) thinbloods about to level, a fledgling or two within a kill of leveling, a bat that only needed one kill, and a bat that only needed one experience point, and enough gold to recall them all and recruit a few more units. With 3 nobles, I was able to create a bunch of bloodborn from the peasants, and their leadership allowed me to make short work of most of Michbie's units. I rushed north, used the bloodborn as bait to pull him into range of my army, and after the first engagement bottlenecked him in the mountain pass and bridge, and proceeded to level a few malborn, a duelist, another half-blood, and I don't remember what else, although I did lose a blood bat, a couple bloodborn, and a fledgling that was almost leveled. Doh! I haven't actually killed Michbie yet, but unless there's a scripted surprise, it's just a matter of another turn or two.

Overall, this campaign requires careful experience management to get the units you need leveled, and plenty of applications of bloodborn as cannon fodder to soak for your experience units. Leveling a couple level one units against the therians let me feed them experience against the celestials in scenario one, which let me level two nobles against the devlings, which were crucial to my success against Michbie. Thinbloods also helped against him, because they do pretty alright against fledlings during the day.

[Sapient]

I lost Scenario #3 the first time I played it.
I had to start it over and use a more cautious strategy.
Here are the main points:

1) I also used bat lures to steal a little income and draw pressure off the main force.

2) Capturing the villages from the peasants you will have some losses, but if you defend your gains you can slowly but surely make more gains. Don't try to take them all at once.

3) A lot of your units may die but you can minimize your losses by having the less-useful ones die, and feeding experience to the more-useful ones.

4) Having Igor on this scenario is pretty essential if you don't have other leveled units to recall. Although I did overuse him a bit and lost him as a result, still, I accepted his loss since I beat the scenario without save/loading.

[Sapient]

Very well, I'm not all too sure about the politeness part. Feel free to shut down this strand then or delete it or whatever. I asked for strategic advice... never really got that either. There was this whole thing about how one had to see my replay and tell me specifically what I was doing wrong... instead of giving me a hint? But whatever.

I think the one being impolite is you. You open your first post with a jab at the name (Michbie) then when you get offended when Velensk mentions using tactics/strategy and how it is not a beginner campaign you proceed to point out other irrelevant details (such as spelling mistakes!) which has no relevance to the discussion at hand and serves no end other than being a jerk. I won't repeat some of the other stuff you said.

It's a harder challenge than you are used to? Well, that's no excuse to come on here and insult the content creator.
He's been getting feedback from a lot of players so he won't necessarily adjust the difficulty based on one player's perception.

[Darkmage]

Humm i also have problems at this map, but i know it is may fault because on the previous scenarios y did all wrong, so i will retry from start, but it is indeed a hard scenario.

If you like a campaign about vampires go and create one, if he was able to pass the scenario, other people can. Igor is good to keep him alive, also i will try te strategy of defending with cannon flodder.

[Sapient]

I just played it again and discovered another way to beat Michbie... wasn't really expecting it to work but oddly enough, it did.

[macherb]

Hi

I now did the The Therian Village both in easy and normal. But now I am stuck with Mitchbie in easy. The replay from Developer simply appears to be impossible: Igor is completely exposed and (almost) no enemy attacks? Kromire recruits just 3 units and no one attacks him? If trie this Igor is imedeatly defeated and Kromire soon later.
Perhaps I need more gold from the previous scenario (212 is not enough).

[Velensk]

I'm guessing you cannot look at my replay because it is too old but that would be a better example. It would be hard to beat it with that little gold but possible I imagine.

[Caphriel]

Here's my replay of Michbie. It's version 1.6.2.

[Neophyte]

I took one or two tries to get this one right (on medium). The AI has to outnumber you, otherwise it would be too easy, no AI is as devious.

Mainly seemed to involve creating a line of fledglings (many of which died), using the right unit to attack particular targets, using Kromie/Noble to create Bloodborn fodder and saving units from getting killed.

I had to resist my urge to always attack.

Vampire units are harder/different to play than most in the mainline. In general Era of Myths units seem to do more damage and have slightly lower HPs. It took the first couple of scenarios for me to get the hang of how they operate. No healers, regen health with backstab, plague attack with Nobles, etc..

Timing your engagement with the enemy for maximum impact makes a big difference. I tend to over-recruit fledglings and on the initial round target the archers/mages. That way when I get attacked by his remaining melee units I at least do some counter damage.

So don't bash the campaign writer. This is one of the better campaigns I've completed. IF you think this is hard, War of the Dragon makes me cry.

[Sapient]

If you're using fledglings as cannonfodder then that is a shame because it is a real waste of gold here. Fledgelings should be doing backstabs, preferrably under leadership. Bloodborns should be your cannonfodder, and they can help setup backstabs. Use thinbloods to weaken the enemy peasants then finish them off with your nobles to create more bloodborns. Send bloodborns ahead slightly to grab villages even if you may not be able to hold the village quite yet... they can weaken the enemy fledgelings which helps you counterattack and finish them off more effectively on your turn.

By the way, speaking of nobles I highly recommend them... they're far more useful than duelists until you get 3 nobles at least; this way you are maximizing damage of your L1 troops.

That first replay I posted was just a joke to kind of poke fun by showing that you can essentially beat this with a single unit. It's not really a useful strategy because it abuses the fact that Igor was so near to leveling that the AI wouldn't attack him. Aside from that, it was wasteful because I should have been leveling up more experienced troops to deal with the coming scenario.

This replay I'm posting now was my real run through the scenario. Ignoring bloodborns, I only lost one unit (a fledgling).

Caphriel -- it said that your replay was corrupt when I tried to load it. I suggest you uninstall Ageless Era if you have it, because it seems to cause problems with EoM.

[Caphriel]

I don't have ageless era. I have Kromire, Myths, a recent multiplayer map update, and the ooze mini-campaign... It's from version 1.6.2, and your replay is version 1.6.4; could it be a different version problem?

[Dynamo-Nath]

I have to say I'm having a few problems with this level as well. I managed the first one spot on after a couple of re-tries and adjusting my thinking of village capturing right away. Devlings had me stumped a few times until i realised that there is no "score" as such and that losing bloodborn is no big deal. I think I must have got lucky with the oathkeeper as she pretty much whipped everything on her own and I started Michbie with 280 gold. The problem seems to be from a lack of cerrectly levelled units; I have no nobles and only one duellist. Will have to persevere and try and use some of the tips from others in the thread.

Personally I thought it did fit into the story as Kromire is trying to take over Michbie lands and become Lord thereby making him stronger and to raise an army...

I'm enjoying the vampires on the whole as it's a nice change from elves! But they are a different challenge.

[Dynamo-Nath]

Wow, that's one impressive replay Sapient; it makes it look so easy. I must say though that you had way better luck than I did with scoring hits on the opposition units. Has encouraged me to try again though.

Edit:
Missed word.

[Velensk]

I have a replay of this scenario on hard with less starting gold and no second noble to back Kromire up that still end in victory that I could post.

I will admit that I came out of it with a rougher set up than sapient did but I did manage to finish the campaign after this replay was made.