Mission 3 is the first real mission after the tutorial levels. Our orders are to destroy the city of Grand Hamlet, and it’s a traditional base vs base conflict. The map is divided into four landmasses connected by bridges, and we start in the northwest corner while our Human enemies start in the opposite southeast corner. We’ll have to hold our ground until we can build up a decent force, then assault the enemy base and completely destroy it. As is typical in RTS games, every enemy unit and structure must be wiped out if we want to claim victory. I start building up my Peon workforce and move our starting troops into defensive positions. Most of the Human attacks are going to come from the bridge just east of us, so I position most of my troops there. We’ll also have some raids come from the south, so I want a secondary force there. As we build, the Humans send small parties against our position, and while they’re easily defeated they do weaken our troops and require replacements to be trained. Things are fine for a while, but we’re forced to expand when the gold mine near our base runs out. I direct our troops guarding the eastern bridge to advance into Human territory—there’s a gold mine in that area that we’ll have to claim and start using as our replacement mine. We march forward and luckily only encounter a Cleric, the Human’s spellcaster. They’re extremely dangerous as support units because they can heal troops, but by himself he’s no threat. Soon we’ve claimed the territory and have set up a new defensive position while the Peons start harvesting gold.
I build a Temple and train a Necrolyte, the Orc counterpart to the Cleric. Unlike the religious-minded Clerics, Necrolytes are trained in black magic and necromancy, and their base spell allows them to raise skeletons from recently killed units (on either side). This is quite useful, since skeletons don’t require food and can supplement our core troops. I have the Necrolyte join our troops in the east and launch an offensive south, against the Human base. Unfortunately, it doesn’t go well. The Humans put up stout resistance and our strike force is wiped out, forcing us back to the drawing board. This leaves them with an open path to our new gold mine and base, so I move the troops guarding the base’s southern area over to the eastern front to shore up defenses.
Despite this setback, I rebuild our army and make a second attempt to destroy the enemy base, this time successfully. The Necrolyte is able to turn casualties on both sides into friendly troops, and there’s little the Humans can do to stop us. However, this is nearly thwarted by a raid on our own base. While I was focused on attacking the enemy base, two Human soldiers came up through the southern path to our base and attacked. I quickly train two Grunts and stop them, but not before losing a Farm and some Peons. Still, it was too little too late for them, and we wipe out their base. The mission doesn’t end right away; that means there’s a straggler that we haven’t killed yet, so we have to explore the map. We eventually find a Cleric and quickly dispatch him to officially win the mission.
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