I reinstalled Heroes of Might and Magic IV a few days ago after maybe half a year of not playing it. Beat some scenarios and the fun but easy Life campaign, then decided to try how well I'd fare in the far harder Chaos campaign. I somehow managed to win the first scenario because the Barbarians who were supposed to be able to reach my main city with hordes of troops never built a hero in the city they should have come from, so I had enough time to get to Black Dragons, take some of the Barbarians' weaker cities on my continent, build up my heroes and eventually first take that supposedly strong barbarian city from the sea. The campaign is pirate-themed, after all. All that was left to do then was to get access to and invade the Elves' continent in the south. They had even larger armies, but I only ever had to fight one serious battle against them. Which of course had to be stationed in the city I had to take (along with the Barbarian one with access to my main city mentioned above). 19 Fairy Dragons and huge amounts of low-level trash took down most of my entire army, but in the end I somehow won with 60-something Medusas left. Thank Athena for that Stone Gaze ability! So, both target cities were captured mission won. Too bad for the gigantic enemy armies that had been wandering in my territory and taking cities - only two weak ones fortunately, but they could easily have taken anything I had - near the end. But that was only the first mission of the entire campaign...
