One word: vassals.
You no longer -need- to defend outlying holdings yourself. Release them as vassals and let the AI defend them for you, for free! (Plus, RP wise, I didn't think Arvik wanted to turn his fellow frostlings into ghouls. He just wanted respect and power. Or at least that's how I played him. )
Of course, the vassal garrisons won't hold out forever against a determined AI, and in my case the rogue did eventually take the warlord's city, but in the meantime it earned me a lot of gold.
Some further tips:
- There's a fourth city you can animate. Explore to the north!
- Construct Arctica's Embassy in your capital and build Yetis. They're strong and save you the trouble of researching Bone Collectors.
- After animating all three cities, walk on the stack of bones south of the bone-type shrine. I forget the name. The shrine is located just north of Southgate. You get a nice gift that'll help your early expansion a lot.
- Explore nearby dungeons. In the area south of Southgate (where you get the quest to take out the spawners) there's a lich castle that is well defended, but if you take it you get a very useful item for your secondary hero. And speaking of heroes: if you explore the Hall of the Forefather's near your eastern city, you get another one you get to keep the whole campaign!
- There's a quest you can do that will make the warlord fight the other two AI's. Explore the tunnels south of Southgate. (Though honestly, I never got this quest to work. I took the warlord out first like you did.)
- Finally, ghoul everything you can. Get ghoul curse on your leader, use the item from the Lich Castle, and build an army from the corpses of your enemies. To get it to work on tough foes, try to curse them and hit them with the Despair of your reanimators. Also wait until they're not in guard mode. You're a necromancer, so act like one!
When I played this scenario I didn't do it in an optimal fashion, exactly, and struggled in a very similar manner to you in the beginning, but I eventually managed. (Most of the stuff above I only figured out halfway through the map...)
After animating the first three ruins I explored the area around Southgate and then went into the tunnel. When I emerged on the other side, my scouts discovered I was near the Warlord's capital and I rushed it with 3 stacks. (mostly low-level junk, including the bunch of living frostling tier 1s that join you early on) One enemy down, city released as vassal for reasons outlined above.
Then, as I was moving some of my troops back north, the Theocrat attacked with all those fire summons. I managed to rush back the Tigran hero and his troops just in time to defend my eastern city (a bit of luck on my part, I'll admit) and reinforce him with half a stack of White Witches and Yetis I had been producing in the meantime. This probably was the decisive fight of the campaign: the AI had three stacks versus my two, but I was defending the walls. I ended up winning without suffering more than a couple of casualties, and then discovered that extra hero in the dungeon nearby
Of course, before I got to exploit my victory, the rogue attacked. The Warlord's old capital fell, as did the city I had constructed in the underground. And then Tigrans appeared out of nowhere to attack Southgate. Oops.
(My main hero and his stack, meanwhile, had gotten lost exploring some vast underground tunnel network north of the warlord's territory and were in no position to be even remotely useful. Hint: Do not do this.)
I debated what to do for a few minutes and eventually decided to push my advantage against the Theocrat. I did sent the sorcerer hero and my weakest stack south to defend against further Rogue attacks, and rushed the Tigran and one-and-a-half stack of troops to chase down the Theocrat before he could rebuild his army. That gamble paid off: the Theocrat went down without much more of a fight.
The rogue, meanwhile, didn't push his advantage as he might have because of the mountains in between me and the warlord's territory. I managed to defend Southgate against the Tigrans and amass three stacks for my sorcerer hero who took back the Warlord's capital many turns later.
Finally, my leader managed to find his way out of the tunnels (with a lot of good magic items, which helped later on) and ran into my victorious Tigran druid who'd gone through a teleporter behind the Theocrat's city. They headed south towards the Rogue's territory, fought off an attempt to kill their stacks, and eventually met with my Sorcerer's reinforcements and took out the Rogue's capital. Mission accomplished.
(Except I first sent a bunch more stacks scouting the seas and whatnot for all the loot I could grab to bring to the next mission.)
I think that in general I moved a bit faster than you, which always helps in AoW. I defeated the Warlord before he started to attack me, for example. The Theocrat never got to tier 4 units, and the Rogue only got to build a handful of Shadow Stalkers before I got the upper hand. But I also got lucky here and there. Still, it's doable. But probably the toughest campaign scenario I've fought.
Oh, and as for triggers: I heard that the AI is only triggered once you cross the bridges and get a message from Melenis. Not sure about that. I did it pretty early on by accident anyway since I scout a lot.
Hope that helps!
Post edited May 01, 2015 by Jason_the_Iguana
