That's good to know. Thanks for the info.

(I'd still just use normal fire and burn that little level 1 town just south of your start to the ground)

I'm going to raze all. Don't have level 4 fire.

Spirit puppets are immune to poison. You can use a few of them to occupy the city and convert it. Added bonus they are good against Undead and can damage wraiths.

That's a good point, actually; I'd forgotten about those. They'll require installation, but the initial towns are big enough to roll those off the line at 1/turn. They aren't great units, being low stat melee, but they can take care of wraiths. (Not that wraiths are an issue at this point of the campaign.)

Thanks!

See, this is the problem with overpowered "HoMMIV" heroes at the stage of the campaign. All those cool strategies and none of them matter...

Using the default leader, and then focus more on things like Spell Casting, Vision, Leadership and such, instead of melee skills, helps.
At least I found the Keepers Campaign more enjoyable with this character than with a customized über hero when I replayed it about a year ago. And this time I actually completed it.

3rd Highmen level

Splat.

I recall there was somewhere a formula about how experience is calculated, but can't find it. Anyone has it?

When killing a non-hero unit, the killer gets 1xp per tier of the victim. So a T1 archer is worth 1xp, while a T4 First Born is worth 4xp.

A hero (or leader) is worth 1xp per level of the victim. So a level 25 hero is worth 25xp.

Non-hero units need (tier x 2) xp to reach silver medal, and they need an additional (tier x 4) xp to reach gold medal, for a grand total of (tier x 6) xp to go from zero to gold. So a T1 archer needs 2xp to reach silver and 6xp total to reach gold medal, while a T4 Air Galley needs 8xp for silver and 24xp for gold.

[Edit: corrected the XP requirements for heroes.] Heroes need 15xp per level until they reach level 10. Reaching levels 11-20 require 20xp per level, and levels 21-30 require 25xp per level.

Unlike normal units, each hero gets 1xp per turn just for being aligned with a player (indy heroes don't get this xp). Higher AI difficulties get bonus xp for each hero.

Thank you.

Check my edit. Heroes don't require 15xp per level all the way to level 30; I just finished looking it over because 450xp is NOT what a level 30 hero has.

Also, heroes gain xp each day automatically. I think it is normally 1xp per day, but the AI heroes get more than that at higher difficulties.