Hello! I've done a lot of testing and pathfinding and I wanted to share my strategy with you guys.
So let's begin:
- Dungeons and Demons
We start with this campaign, because it has the biggest luck factor on our list. My suggestion is:
1st Scenario: Do exactly what Single Campaign (later as SC) run does (buildings, two heroes and attacking) except invite Gem at the first turn to your city and take upper path with her. This makes luck way better by:
-Eliminating Boat Spell luck
-Considerably increasing chance for Adv. Water Magic
2nd Scenario: Exactly as SC does (hope evil eyes join you). Other strategies are considerably slower and harder at the same time. You play this campaign as the first one, so you can afford a bit more luck-based events.
3rd Scenario: Exactly as SC. Boat saves a lot of time, so stick with it. Take upper path, attack Steadwick on 2nd day of the week (that's when Kendall visits the mill, leaving Steadwick half-empty).
Approx. time lost to SC: 15 seconds
- Spoils of War
This scenario is actually not that bad luckwise, so the playthrough is very similiar to SC.
1st Scenario: Exactly as SC (use two heroes: one is Korbac with starting army, additional gnolls and lizards from castle, the other you must recruit in tavern at the other town and give him Wyverns) If your second encounters Lizards and fights them instead of convincing to join your army, that's a restart. Use the same pathing as SC does
2nd Scenario: Exactly as SC. Switch 1st hero off, build 2 town centers, take 2 goldmines and 1 city with your behemoth hero and spam End Turn until you have 200000 gold.
3rd Scenario. Beginning is the same as SC, except you recruit another hero at the main town. After collecting Goldmines, you put your main hero near the easternmost city and chain others to send him army on m1w3d1 turn. Go on rampage through red's castles and take +6 helmet of endless power or sth like that (you get the point). Then use your chain with another hero to grab more army and transfer it to Korbac. Grab Library on theway to purple. Most of the time they will be contained on their starting turf, now just decimate them.
Approx. time lost to SC: 0 seconds
- Long Live the Queen
The First Campaign is played as 3rd? Why? You will understand quickly.
1st Scenario: Invite Kyrre to the Tavern and use her to take the dungeon underground.
2nd Scenario: Choose Angel as a bonus. Play as SC, except use Kyrre to grab experience (at least until she's on lvl7, but 8-9 is better) Rush Enemy cities with Christian and Kyrre, leave your 3rd hero to defend Fair Feather. Don't collect resource mines.
3rd Scenario: Now strategy absolutely deviates from the SC run. Recruit 2 more heroes, build 2 town halls and collect all the resources (except for ones behind maogogs) on your starting terrain. In your main castle, you'll want to rush Angels on 1st Week. After getting there use remaining days to build Citadel/Castle. Build Marketplaces in other cities. On the m1w2d1 build Town hall in your main city, make sure to have upgr. archer dwelling and a marketplace by m1w3d1. On that day buy all the army (Sell all resources after buying Angels) and get the army to Kyrre.
Now, the fun part:
You can take the Conservatory at this point, but it's up to you.
After that you must kill upper right cerber and go with the right road until you get to the stables. Enter them, kill Troglodytes and start flagging Griffon dwellings, while your enemies "collect" your cities...
Yes, it's a game of "who kills who first?", but you win, because Kyrre has logistics speciality. Boots of Speed also help.
If you are in danger of losing, you can quickly grab one of tan's upper castles and reset the timer.
If enemy gets in your way, just kill him.
Approx. time lost to SC: 3-4 minutes
- Liberation
This campaign is special because it demands precise movement to manipulate enemies, some chains and luck factors. Because of this campaign I though that doing good RoE run isn't viable at this point, but man was I terribly wrong.
1st Scenario: Play exactly as SC. The extremely luck-based Gem boat trick is included. Why? Because you'd have to fail it about 24 times in a row to actually start losing time to regular method. Chances are you're gonna gain time over regular method anyway, and your potential is way better
One important thing: After disembarking make sure to stand below Steadwick, as close to the city as possible. This way you'll lure the defender out to attack you and leave the city half-empty.
2nd Scenario: Play exactly as SC. You rush 2nd Week Angels, just like in LLtQ. Learn the chains well and hope to get low archdevils in front of the city.
3rd Scenario: Play exactly as SC. Choose expert Logistics as bonus and rush 1st Week Titans. Hope for good mercenaries to take the Gold Mine. Alternatively, use Tower army to get it. Make an army in enemy's swamp capital, use chians to break through at m1w3d1. You should be able to deal with your enemies.
4th Scenario: Play exactly as SC. You rush 1st Week ARCHANGELS. Once again: Archangels. You'll need a lot of gold, so collect every treasure chest as gold (Except for two that get Astral to lvl5). Build 3 Marketplaces and ship 3 Archangels to Astral on m1w2d1 (the Triple A). From there navigate enemy cities and build Mage Guilds to recover Mana. Now for the Capital City: Teleport OUTSIDE of the border gate; otherwise your enemy will hide in his city instead of exploring outside. Steal it the next turn, recruit two weeks worth of army and kill him. Finishing orange off after that is easy.
Approx. time lost to SC: 4-7 minutes on average, depending on 1st scenario. Could be even 0 or 14 minutes.
- Long Live the King
Another campaign played mostly the same except for 1st Scenario.
1st Scenario: You start as SC, roll until you get Galthran, get a horde of skeletons, get two chests underground and then... Rush Stonecastle. Defeat Red, expand your castle up to vampires and collect some army to kill Zealots and get the artifact exchanged to Spirit of Oppression.
2nd Scenario: Play exactly as SC. If you encounter Plague week, feel free to load previous save and recruit your units.
3rd Scenario: Play as SC, except send army from the second Necro to Galthran as well.
4th Scenario: Play exactly as SC. Some tips I can give are: -Learn the chain to ship all the units as SKELETONS as well as Speculum to Galthran on m1w1d3. The positions are precise to make it work. -Replenish forces at 4th enemy's castle -Get Bone Dragons and Cartographer -If you cannot spot enemies, skipping turns and loading previous savefile might be the best way to find them -Expand 2 enemy's Castles and western Necro
Approx. time lost to SC: 2-3 minutes
- Song for the Father
Up to this point, the playstyle was mostly SC with some exceptions, but now it changes. You cannot get DD reliably, especially this late in the run.
1st Scenario: Start like SC, but after killing Purple, visit the tents immediately and rush with Nimbus to your city. Straight forward.
2nd Scenario: Now you have to restart until you have Undead in your Necropolis. Make 3 armies: 1 from Necro troops (with vampires built) and 2 heroes worth of armies (led by Nimbus), 1 led by random hero from Castle (2 heroes needed for army) and 1 elfish army also led by random hero. Take enemy's three outer castles in 1 Week and leave all your armies, except Elfish ,to defend them. Build Citadel in the middle city and recuit some defending heroes and army in 2nd Week. Rush elves to the last city and wait for victory.
3rd Scenario: Now... I tried as much as I could to make it consistent, but it's still awfully random and unreliable in terms of length. Basically restart until either Cathrine or Lord Haart starts with Expert Logistics. Send both armies to the lucky one, as well as +6 Helmet and army from city (upgrade starting units too!). Send the hero forward and get him centaurs, elves and pegasi from the Rampart (via chaining). Go through zombies and garrison. After that rush to the upper enemy's city, as it's not defended yet (unless you're unlucky and meet with enemy's main hero). Steal the Sword of Judgement (or +5 sword), recruit more units from Necro and try to hunt enemy's remaining city and heroes. Easier said than done. They will try to attack your outer cities, but for most heroes Castle+recruited forces are enough to stop them. Hunt their main hero with yours - you will have superior stats. Make sure to have at least 2 weeks worth of Necro army to win consistently (kinda). It's bad, it's frustrating, it's random, but it's the best you can do without DD.
Approx. time lost to SC: 3-7 minutes.
- Seeds of Discontent
After a hell ride of SftF, this is just a casual stroll
1st Scenario: Go for left side, wait until the 2nd Week to get more centaurs, dwarves and elves. Get both pegasi events, unicorn event and upgrade your army in the hill fort. Kill unicorns, ents and angels to mine everything until you find the Grail. It's a 5x5 square, centered on the horizontal river tile.
2nd Scenario: Play exactly as SC. Take the lower path and get to the Welnin ASAP.
3rd Scenario: Play exactly as SC. Build order:
turns 1-3: Mage Guild Blacksmith Marketplace
Turns 4-6: Town Hall City Hall Citadel
Trade for Castle, build Castle and then Capital.
Approx. time lost to SC: 1 minute
CONCLUSION:
Keep in mind this is just my recommendation of a path and you can implement any different strategies you want. This is just what I think balances luck factor and time well enough. With this method times of 1hr20m to 1hr10min are achievable. If all the stuff from SC was implemented, sub 1hr run of RoE would be possible
