🚀 go-pugleaf

1) Pick the curse of the netherworld spell as your starting bonus.
This is something that will be useful throughout the game and not just
at the start.

2) Hire 2 more heroes. Depending on their starting armies, give the
troops to either Isabel (haven troops) or Markal (undead troops).

3) Hire one more hero on day 2 at the haven town that will build a
boat and start sailing. Build the resource silo in the necropolis so
you can start accumulating mercury as soon as possible.  Later on in
the week, a second hero should also start sailing. One of the sailors
should take the whirlpool to the west and explore the eastern section
of the map.

4) Markal should concentrate on attacking neutral stacks while your
secondary heroes pick up stuff and flag mines.

5) Make sure you build something in each town every day focusing first
on money-producing dwellings then on creature generators. You can only
build the Capitol in the haven town, not the necropolis.

6) Your problem in this map, resource-wise, will be the lack of ore.
Spend it very wisely and plan your purchases ahead of time.

7) In week 2, I'd suggest having Isabel buy all archers and footmen
she can, build a boat and start sailing (from the west shipyward).
Markal should also start sailing (from the eastern shipyard). Just
before embarking on the boat, make sure to visit Sylanna's ancients,
the tree just south of the eastern shipyard. It gives you a level for
free or for a small cost.

8) First of all, have Markal go east to capture the lighthouse then
after clearing that small island, have undead troops brought as
reinforcements (wights, vampires, skeletons) then sail quickly north
to take a much-needed ore pit. On this new island, there is also a
pair of boots of the open road. They are very useful since they will
negate all movement penalty caused by rough terrain.

9) How to beat rakshasa (or other large creatures) with just archers
and footmen? Split the footmen in 2 stacks. Keep the archers in a
corner and position your footmen with one stack in front of the
archers and the other on the diagonal. You cast mass haste (or just
haste on your archers), phantom forces on your archers and mass divine
strength or righteous might if necessary. Defend with your footmen
until the rakshasa attack.

10) Isabel is strong enough to venture at the first northwestern
disembarking point and explore north from there. That's what she
mostly did during week 2 and 3. Avoid going through the teleporting
monolith with Isabel for the moment but do send a secondary hero as a
scout eventually. In fact, sending a scout through a monolith before a
main hero should always be done.

11) Don't hesitate to trade at the marketplace to get enough sulfur to
buy the pillar of bones to finally get the sepulcher (for liches) by
the end of week 2.

12) The staff of the netherworld, one of your objectives, is just
beyond some bone dragons on a small island north of your starting
island.

12b) This turns out to be a fluke (probably a random artifact) since
you also get it by capturing Ziyad later on, which in the map context
makes more sense.

13) Before starting the invasion in earnest, after exploring all of
the smaller islands south of the orange-controlled continent, you
might want to have Markal's troops upgraded at home. He doesn't need
to get out of the boat, you can just transfer troops by hero chain.

13b) Actually, this last point is pretty much optional since it's
pretty certain Markal could deal easily with anything just by
wandering and having neutral undead stacks join him.

14) How do you pass whirlpools relatively unscathed? You transfer your
skeleton archers except 1 to a secondary hero. If some troops fall
overboard, it will be the lowest-level troop in your army, henceforth
the one skeleton archer. If you only have skeleton archers, then split
them into 2 single-unit stacks and one stack with the rest. I'm pretty
sure your big stack of skeleton archers won't get halved.

15) In a normal map (against the computer), I would have split most of
my troops in two to cover more ground and capture towns quicker.
However, in this particular mission, you actually want Markal to take
the towns himself so he can curse them and turn them into
necropolises. Actually, any hero could take those towns and Markal
could curse them later but why bother with unecessary delays? Besides,
once the town is cursed, it becomes a necropolis and you lose all the
previously bought academy buildings.

16) If you see the orange player coming from a lith, going south and
taking a boat, it's likely he's coming to attack you. However with
your unbought reserve troops, you should be fine. If you're lucky, you
might even intercept him with Markal by boat. You're faster than
orange because of the lighthouse. If orange does take the boat and is
coming towards you, see that as a signal for Isabel to take the
monolith herself and attack the mostly undefended orange town (Sihaad)
in the northwest corner, south of the monolith.

17) In month 2, week 1, I captured Ziyad easily with Markal. Build up
the mage guild to level 5 to get new spells. It would also be a good
town to upgrade in general.

18) Once you take Ziyad (or is that simply when you take your first
academy with Markal?), a very strong sylvan army on a boat will appear
at the end of the river to the northwest and is likely to head
straight for your initial haven town.  If you use Isabel, even if you
use all the troops accumulated from the start in the haven town,
you're going to have a hard time winning. If you have no choice, try
to make a stand inside your almost fully-upgraded haven town.

19) In my game, when I fought the green hero in a boat-to-boat
contest, I lost badly. When I reloaded, I decided to flee home to get
even more troops, upgrading those I already had (except monks) and to
wait inside. I did send a sacrificial hero with his starting army
separated in 7 stacks to soak up any "next battle" bonus, green might
have so he wouldn't have them against Isabel (I don't think he had
that kind of bonus but it's still a valid strategy to at least
evaluate the opponent's strength and kill a few units with spells).
Green passed its way but I attacked him with Isabel before he could
reach my initial necropolis. It went much better this time. It's a
"dynamic" battle with timed turns and I don't think you can set it
otherwise. Battle dive the druid elders or the master hunters with
your imperial griffins. Cast mass haste with Isabel, then mass
righteous might or mass divine strength. Concentrate on the enemy
shooters and let your conscripts and squires handle the unicorns and
battle dancers. Don't forget phantom forces and resurrect if you have
those spells.

20) Try to always keep one empty slot in Markal's army so you don't
lose troops when they join you for greater glory. To do that, have a
secondary hero follow him around like a puppy dog taking any extra
undead troops.

21) You can complete the 1000 skeletons objective with skeleton
archers.

22) I could give more detailed battle tactics advice against the high-
level orange wizards you'll encounter with Markal but basically your
army should be so powerful orange doesn't stand much of a chance. Try
to get rid of the archmages first, have the archliches target several
enemy stacks instead of just one, cast mass spells. The spell Frenzy
is great but doesn't last long enough. I used it on the djinn sultans
who proceeded to kill 6 titans. Even better, the archmages wasted a
turn shooting the djinns.

23) The wizard town of Bahiyaa, to the center-north of the map has the
cloak of death's shadow.

24) Later on in the desert, you'll see one-way monolith exits. Strong
orange armies could come through there. What I did was give
approximately half my undead troops to Isabel who would hang around
and protect my holdings in this area while Markal would press forward
through the garrisons.

25) The spell puppet master is better than Frenzy because it lasts
longer and you can control the enemy stack. The spell righteous might
(level 3) is also usually stronger than divine strength (level 1).
Divine strength improves the minimal damage of the stack. At master
level, the stack inflicts maximum damage. For example, a stack of
marksmen with a damage range of 2 to 8 would inflict 8 points of
damage per marksman with a divine strength spell cast at maximum
level.

26) To reach the last orange academy, you'll have to go through 3
consecutive garrisons that are progressively better protected. The
standard strategy would be to target the mages/archmages and gremlins
first (at least before the golems, or else the gremlins will repair
them), kill the djinns with your melee units, incapacitate the
rakshasa with puppet master, frenzy or confusion. Casting phantom
forces on your skeleton archers and archliches will inflict more
damage than an offensive spell except perhaps curse of the netherworld
that affects all enemy units or implosion.

27) It's possible to finish the 20 bone dragons objective with 20
spectral dragons.

Finished in month 3, week 3, day 5 at normal difficulty (with patch
1.4)

The Quebec Dragon