[Shadowcran]

On the Steam forums, I made a Guide in the guide section for this game.

Avoid as many battles as you can, doing 'just enough' to get started on Portland. That means at Whitehill, only fight ONE of the 3 battles there. The one to the left of where you enter is usually the easiest one.

At Portland, you can start grabbing some great creatures/items/spells before having to fight a single battle again. My guide helps with that.

1. Once you are "run out" of Dragandor(dwarven area)and kill ONE unit in Whitehill, you can go to Portland. Once there:

2. Return through the catacombs, the entrance is located in a graveyard. First, go back into:

3. Dragandor and retrieve what loot is there. Usually not much.

4. Then go back into catacombs, go into Tristem and Atrixus and immediately leave back into the catacombs.

5. The reason being you can now teleport to those zones and it's worth it to do so. When you teleport in, there's nothing there to attack you.

6. Tristem. Avoid the elven patrols. They're far too much to deal with. Instead pick up goodies while avoiding them. Two really good ones take place outside "Grumph's Inn". You can get 70 shaman or 70 "Goblins with Catapults" there. Very good units at this point in the game. Also, make your way into the underground area. There is another free "friendly unit" there. A lot of either Veteran Orcs or regular orcs. There is also a large supply of goblins outside the Shaman's Tent as free friendly units, but you won't need them.

7. Teleport to Atrixus. There is an area where, if you avoid one patrol, and it can easily be done, you can reach an area that has 15-18 either Demons or Executioners. Again, very good units and they're free "friendly units". Also, immediately right next to the area you teleport to, there is a movable tile to an area with Verdelet the Demonologist and no encounters to get there. You can buy Demonologists there, an excellent unit as well as either Demons or Executioners. Later in the game, Verdelet will come to the Shelter so you can recruit units there from him. He only has top of the line demonologists and demon units then.

8. Once you get the map to Insenburg, which can be obtained by killing the Paladin unit located in front of a navigational chart(he's actually slightly easier than the pikeman unit guarding the chart to Monteville), go there and sail around picking up chests. One island has 4 fields on it of various "crops", with a road in front of it with usually a plant type unit. The GREEN FIELD can be landed on and in the middle is a chest that has from 100,000 to 180,000 gold pieces in it. The units in Isenburg aren't all that good to recruit though.

9. Once you get the map to Monteville from the Pikeman unit, sail there. Immediately avoid the unit that's close, and go left to a castle where you can recruit Necromancers, a truly excellent unit. Further along the path, avoiding TWO tough units, you get to another castle where you can recruit all 3 types of vampires. Save the female vampires for now as you'll need them for a quest later. Both of these castles, as well as the "Dead House", where you first land, often have excellent undead items if you have enough gold saved to buy a few now.

With these great units, you can more easily handle Portland. Portland can be extremely tough for a starting area, but with these units, it can be a cakewalk. Once Portland is "finished" and "of the dark", you can recruit Human Traitor units, which are "dark versions" of units you might be more familiar with from earlier King's Bounty games.

Another good thing is the Blood Priestess to fill up those "must keep" units. Her sacrifice, unlike the spell,works on summoned units like Call of Nature and Demon types and the like.

**Also, there is often a spell in a coal cart when you first enter Dragandor. I got Death Star last time and yes, it really helps in the early going and is tough until end of game. Often for vampire, the spell there is a very good one.

Hope this helps.