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I'm having a hard time progressing because the remaining enemies simply have way more units than I do. The thing is I have tons of gold and resources. If I just click "next turn" a whole bunch of times I will end up with a ton of units. Are there any consequences to sitting still and doing nothing? I'm afraid if I do nothing for a bunch of weeks except waiting for new units to be generated that there will be negative consequences.

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The longer you wait for new units the more units your enemy will have. – Wipqozn Oct 18 '11 at 1:03

2 Answers

up vote 9 down vote accepted

If you spend longer on a campaign map, you will get a lower score, so that is one potential negative.

Also, you have to make sure that you army is growing faster than your enemy's, or you will never get to a point when you can beat them. The simplest way to do this is to look at the difficulty of a particular enemy you want to defeat. If that difficulty ever decreases, your army is probably growing faster. Similarly, if it ever gets more difficult or it stays the same for a long time, then the fight probably will never get easier.

I used this strategy in the first Necromancer campaign mission on Normal difficulty with the following results:

  • I maximized my own creature growth by capturing every creature producing building I could, building every building in all of my towns, and keeping a hero that increased Ghoul production in one of my towns.

  • I minimized my opponent's creature production by occupying his creature producing buildings (though I am not sure if that was effective)

  • I waited for units for at least a few months.

  • After that amount of time, my opponent's difficulty still showed as Hard (it had changed to Severe once, but then it changed back to Hard and never went down again), but when I fought him I won the battle without too much trouble.

This implies that the opponent's displayed difficulty can sometimes be a useful heuristic, but it is not a definite indicator of relative army strength.

If the enemy is sending heroes to kill you, remember to stay in your town to take full advantage of your fortifications, and remember to pay attention enough to buy units before you get attacked or you might get surprised by a superior force. If you can make him sustain a lot more losses, you might be able to gain an advantageous position faster.

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Depending on the situation, oftentimes you want the enemy sending heroes to kill you. If the AI thinks it can win, it will waste no time in sieging you, where you can use fortifications, ranged units, and a garrison hero to make up for inferior numbers. If you can lure the PC into attacking you, and win, you can often attain a superior position. – Raven Dreamer♦ Oct 18 '11 at 1:26
ok, now how can I make sure my army is growing faster than my enemy? – Apreche Oct 18 '11 at 1:31
@RavenDreamer Thanks, I added that to my answer, and I added some information about army growth speed. – murgatroid99 Oct 18 '11 at 2:13
@Apreche - expand, expand, expand. If you have more towns than your opponent, or more creature generating dwellings than your opponent, then your army is growing faster than your opponents. – Jason Berkan Oct 18 '11 at 5:10
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@Apreche That sounds like an excellent question to ask. I have some thoughts I'd share if you put it in its own question. – bwarner Oct 18 '11 at 11:47
up vote 0 down vote

I totally agree with the accepted answer.

However, there is an achievement that requires that a replay of a campaign is faster than the previous time.

So actually it might be a good idea to waste time during the first play-through :)

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