Hi there!

I'm looking for some "advice" on taking over the stoneblade mountain level. I have an elf and a dwarf monument, and I have been able to "stabilize" a decent resource production.


The map is "divided" in two sides: Left, the baddies being minotaurs with several low-level settlements and I with a full developed elven base. The only entry, to the north, full of towers, so any enemy who tries to get inside my base get some nice souvenir in form of several arrows.
The right side, though, is the "dwarf" side. I have only three units for the dwarf army, so I use it only to mine ores. The entry its a wide river and the baddies are orcs, that seems to spawn in HUGE amounts. And it's pissing me off.

The problem its the slow unit production ratio I have, together with the bad defense place the right side offers. I can't build more towers because the orc flow its almost continuous, and the baddies kill my workers, but I can't use my army to advance because I don't have enough soldiers. Also, after some fightings, I have a strange feeling of my army being not match for the orcs, like if I were trying to kill level 10 units with level 5 units.

Currently, it seems I have lost the map, because I find impossible hold the base against the orc attacks: I can't build towers, I can't fight them, I don't know if I can retreat. All I can do right now its watch how the enemy kills my small virtual warriors.

I see the minotaurs as a more easy target to destroy first, so I can clear half of the map, retreating from the "right" base (the path which connects both bases its a narrow valley, so I could try to fill the place with towers, or maybe just the orcs will stop attacking due "the player not being in the spot". But even without the minotaurs, the problem on facing the orcs persist. So, what should I do? Should I try another map, level up, get more dwarf units so I can use them...? Did I do something wrong, did I forgot something...?


Forwarded thanks, and sorry for my bad english :*

Build towers on the left gap to defend yourself, the one where minotaurs attack through. Don't waste time destroying their bases, instead, focus on destroying the trolls on the right. With a two dozen warriors and your avatar, you should be able to.

I never bother taking the dwarf monument untill the map is already cleared and the only reason i take it is to collect the required ammount of ore for one of the side quests, otherwise i wouldn't bother taking it.

I go about this map slowly and this is usually my game plan

- 5 windfrost towers on the north entrance and 3 or 4 on the east entrance,
- pretty much the only unit i use (besides my Avatar and Heroes) are upgraded windarchers (ice arrows).
- 5 windarchers (plus the towers) are enough to keep the Minotaurs in check in the northern entrance
-My Avy and 15 -20 windarchers take the east route out of the elf camp and then cross the river to the north. This path leads to most of the trolls' spawn points. Trolls are alot more problematic later on so it's best to take them out first.
-Aftre taking out the trolls my Avy and its army return to the elf camp using the same route (south to cross the river and then west to the elf camp).
-After that my Avy and its army take the northen route out of the elf camp and start hiting the Minoutaurs and Beastclaws along the way
-At the intersection you have a choice: go west to take out the Minoutaurs main camp or go north to the heroes monument first and then go after the Minotaurs. When you go for the heroes monument you'll have to keep an eye on it because the map is huge and there are lots of enemies moving about that will likely capture the monument if you leave it unguarded.

That's pretty much it. After taking out the Minoutaurs the map basically becomes a mop up job, just a matter of exploring and taking out all the other baddies roaming around.

Well, thanks for all ;)

Yesterday I tried to retreat to the west section of the base, and shield the mountain pass filling it with standard towers. After earning some time (while the Orcs, or whatever they are, who were coming from the east destroyed the rest of the base) and forming a decent army (Mainly with the recommended windarchers and healers (By the way, the healers have an obsession with going to the frontline to get killed that really pull my nerves, I don't really like ordering them five times in a fight to pull back -_-u). But the orks kept coming and coming and coming, and when my "army" ran out of melee soldiers, they just ran over my archers and healers.

So I guess I'll end up retreating and coming back to the map for a "fresh" start, trying to take out the trolls/orcs/whatever first.

Are the windfrost towers really worth it? Until now, my standard strategy was just "spam" tower after tower, ignoring the Windfrost ones due its price. Is worth "spam" them or they are better used with the standard towers?

To me the windfrost towers are worth it, they do cold damage over time and they stop the foes dead in their tracks for a few moments allowing the towers (and whatever small force you positioned by the towers) to get in a few extra shots.If you're going to spam towers all over though than it's possible cost may become a factor (even though there are plenty of resources on this map), although i really wouldn't know since i use towers pretty scarcely and not at all unless i really have to, like in this map where i usually put up 6-9 depending on how things are going.

The trolls if left to their own devices and given enough time will eventually run over anything you can put up, that's why you should take them out first thing when there's not many of them and a small number of units plus your Avy can shut down their spawn points.

You can issue HOLD orders to your units (H key). Place your healers a couple of step backs from the frontline with a HOLD order and they won't run to the front anymore and they will still heal injured units inside their range. Same thing for archers, you can issue them hold orders and they will attack anything in range but won't move from the spot.

your main towers are regular damaging ones, with a few freezing towers in the mix. Freezing enemies allow your arrow towers to damage them much more before they continue on. I would say every 5 regular towers use 1 freeze tower.

A few ways to do this map. I found the easiest way is to farm the east 3 troll camps ( I call them trolls). Why? Because they can attack your hero monument from the north which is very annoying if you let their 3 camps build up. minotaurs are easier foes and they won't be attacking your monument.

Summon your heros, send them to the troll areas to farm foes as they spawn. 2 heros at each spot, (1 camp you'll have to run back and forth). Your avatar needs to just run between the minotaur camps west killing stuff keeping the spawn down.

As you build your base, you want to get towers up at the troll camps to back up your heros. Once you get enough towers up you can just leave 1 hero at each spawn spot and it and the towers will keep them clear. Then you can start moving west and building towers at those bases. You want towers in every space where you can fit a tower, the foes are tough and take a while to take down. Eventually you'll just have a wall of towers stretching all over the minotaur bases.

That is if you want to farm experience, its easy to just destroy the bases if you don't. And yes, freezing towers are very good and you want some in the tower mix. they keep foes pinned down right when they spawn, and allow your archer towers to damage them much more.