Hello everybody

I took a long break from the game and ended up restarting the campaign. On the third shard (Tiny Hills) I got:

Forest Start
Fairy Tree
Arena
Temple with Imps
Ruined Tower with Goblins
Ancient Crypt with Undead

So it looks like it will be a lot of fun! I still play at Beginner level. Maybe after finishing a Campaign I will try something more. I usually start with a Warrior (RP thing) and will run him around the surrounding hexes. For the next heroes farming the arena (I read about that just a couple of days ago) looks good.

Fairy tree is awesome, but maybe there arent enough cystals for their upkeep on a hills map.

What does heroes farming the arena refer to?

It is a tiny Hills map, so there might not be enough Crystals for 6 Heroes, 6 Fairies, and 18 Dryads. It looks nice to have a Fairy Tree visible right away because we can start right away training a Dryad and a Fairy instead of having to go exploring the forests for one.

I read something a couple of days ago Gremlion wrote about starting a hero to farm the Arena, so I am trying to figure out how to do this efficiently.

The Arena means a hero can keep going to the Arena to gain gold and experience. So my first hero will be a Warrior. He can go conquer easy nearby hexes and come back with some experienced troops. These troops, with experience and medals then get passed on to the next hero, perhaps a Scout depending on what cool items drop. So the Scout starts out at Level 0 and two Swordsmen and one Healer and they all have medals, facing off against another level 0 hero in the novice league.

Meanwhile the Warrior, depending on how many Command Points he picked up, visits the Fairy Tree and grabs a Fairy and a Dryad and a couple more fresh Swordsmen and goes out again.

Or you could go betting in the arena! Tip: always bet on the commander.

Also I thought that he was talking about if you, say, had a bunch of insane equips for a newly hired warrior (like a Sword of Blood, or some other crazy weapon and some awesome armor) you could send him solo to farm the arena.

Ok thanks.

After Action:

The warrior went out with two swordsmen and a slinger and eventually picked up a healer. We got access to Wood, Iron, and Horses early, and it therefore took a little longer (Turn 28) to get the second hero up and running. The second hero was a Commander, and inherited the warrior's army. They all had medals. The slinger had a Fire Pennant and Order of the Marksman.

Instead of getting Dryads from the Fairy Tree, the warrior went hunting alone with a full set of armor from the plate armory. The Commander was able to get up to about Level 7 in the Arena so it was much quicker than looking around for easy guards. Later the Commander got a couple of Dryads. Having one that is Level 12 and immune to poison wsa fun.

The next choice is a question of (or questionable) style - whether to finish the shard quickly or go explore everything. Getting everything explored took about 215 turns and netted 65 Glory instead of about 40 turns and 50 Glory. I am not sure if the trade-off is worth it.

Now we are on a Tiny Forest Shard, fighting for the Sages Guild - and we start in a Swamp with a Troll Lair visible. Hopefully they do not decide to attack on Turn 3. That would suck.

Any advice? I think this means we have to move fast. The starting hero can gain some levels smashing all the neighboring hexes and easy locations and get some medals for the swordsmen. A couple of Web spells might split up the trolls and buy an extra turn of fighting one at a time. Would having Adventurer guards for the home hex slow down the trolls at all?