Welcome back all. If you’ll recall, it’s time for us to Get on the Boat.
Here’s our world map at the moment.
◊ We’re now able to go to the two other islands we have charts for, namely Scarlet Wind and Bolo. But first, lets ply the waters around our starting island to see if there’s any goodies we can only get via boat.
There’s this little structure.
◊ This is a special mini dungeon that was added in the expansion. I’ll be coming back here towards the end of the game, as you need to be that powerful to tackle the last couple of levels of it.
Say, what’s all this then?
◊ Why’s this guy off in the middle of nowhere? Seems pretty suspicious. And I am supposed to be looking for an enemy spy…lets investigate! He seems to know quite a bit about the spy too…
◊ Aha! You’re under arrest!
◊ Curses, foiled by the need for actual evidence!
◊ Well, lets go look for evidence then…
I head back to the mainland looking for anybody that might know something(ie have a quest marker over their heads). Sure Enough, good ol fisherman Takeshi seems to know something! He says that, despite supposedly being a merchant, he has yet to see Rock Porter actually buy or sell anything, and just the other night, he threw a bag into the water! Takeshi managed to catch the bag, and upon seeing what’s in it, we find all the evidence we need!
◊ Time to go knab us an enemy spy!
We shove our evidence in his face, and he of course decides that the best course of action is to attack us!
◊ He’s a pushover however, and is easily dispatched.
◊
Now that we’ve cleared out the starting island, here’s a map of the fully explored island
◊. Now then, it’s time to move out to new lands! I’m not nearly a high enough level for Bolo Island let, so lets hit up Scarlet Wind!
We get a nice little
◊ panorama of Scarlet Wind
◊, as it’s our first time here. Our first stop is a little piece of land not connected to the main island, where there’s a graveyard and a church. At the church, we speak to one Father Maximus. He has apparently come here to try to redeem the pirates that call Scarlet Wind their home. We, of course, ask if he has any work for us. He tells us the story of Thomas Torkve, one of the greatest paladins of the church. Witches, necromancers, no evil was safe from his blade! Unfortunately, he then proceeded to jump of the slippery slope and decided that even those who might possibly turn to evil should be smited (ie innocent people). Maximus wants us to, should we ever come across Torkve, put him down. Can do!
Back to the main Island. Of course, we have to be careful while sailing now, as there are now enemy heroes also sailing the waters.
◊ Anyway, that castle from the panorama seems like a good place to start. At the Castle, we speak to Arianna, the self proclaimed leader of Scarlet Wind. We ask for work, and she tells that she’s having issues with usurper king Demenions men.
◊ Specifically, she wants us to deal with recruiter Hector Norbu
◊, who’s recruiting pirates into the Demenion military, and Richard the Cruel
◊, who’s just wantonly killing pirates.
We next head to the local grog joint, where the proprietor, Lenny, tries to make a move on us.
◊ After shoving our sword in his face(he swears he was just joking!), we see what he has for hire. He’s got Sea Dogs and Pirates, melee units who have a 20% chance of dodging any attack, Catapults, goblin ranged units that can chuck fireballs, and oooh, Demonologists! Demonologists are ranged units whose base attack is fire and does bonus damage to demons, and they can also summon demons in battle. They also have an ability that damages and enemy stack and heals a friendly stack based on the damage done. They’re quite good units, so I get some, replacing the Fauns in my army, and the Fauns replacing the peasants that have been sitting in my reserve army since the start of the game.
We now ask Lenny if he has any work for us. He says that, before he retired from pirating, some rogue named Goodman on the east side of the island ambushed him and stole his pirate booty as he was on his way to bury it! If we could go find Goodman and kick his teeth in, Lenny would be quite grateful.
Well, that’s about all we can do without getting into fights, so lets start clearing the island! On the northeast end of the island, I find another dwelling. This place has Robbers, Guardsmen, and Swordsmen for sale. Guardsmen are basically upgraded Swordsmen, so I replace my Swordsmen with them and put them in my main army, replacing my Witch Hunters. Or rather, I would do that, but I don’t have enough cash to get a full stack of them. Blarg.
Ho, what’s this? It’s Richard the Cruel!
◊ Lets get him! Oh my, he has Ogres!
◊ These are the first level 5 units we’ve seen. Level 5 is the top tier of units, and includes things like Ogres, Trolls, and the various Dragons. Those guys are definitely a big threat, especially since their special ability lets them steal one of my guys action points, allowing them to cross the field very quickly so they can start smashing my troops. The answer to this threat is to modify the battlefield to our advantage! We simply have Enlong build a wall
◊, and viola! Instant choke point!
◊ Now the only way pass is to either smash through the wall or go through the pass at the top of the map. If you’ll notice, I’ve also used my Trap spell to place a trap up at the choke point. The next step is to use my Witch Hunters to silence the Ogres so they can’t use their special ability and steal my action points.
The Ogres go down to some concentrated fire. At this point in the game, enemy stacks are getting large enough to make lightning orb useful, so I have Enlong summon one
◊. Oh, and those horned fellows over there are some demons that my Demonologists summoned. Between the lightning orb, the chokepoint, and my three ranged units, the battle ends with few casualties. Victory is mine!
◊
This seems like a good stopping place for now. I'm open to any comments or suggestions on how I'm doing.
Until the next installment, so long fellow tropers!
