Campaign

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The Campaign
The original Campaign of Warlords Battlecry III has you trying to fight an ancient evil that arrived just recently on the face of Etheria.

During the campaign you have the chance to travel through the land to gain alliances against the evil, find powerful artifacts and gain specific boni (which only work in the campaign).

Relations between the races
Surprisingly, or realistically enough, they are not always symmetrical (mutual), and you may wonder why. They are modelled by ratings such as "ally", "friend", "neutral", and "enemy".

These diplomatic ratings that are displayed in-game on the Diplomacy screen are "passive", in the sense where "friendly" means that this race/faction considers your hero's race/faction (for starting, see first table below) or your hero (later in the campaign) as a friend of their kin. These ratings are basically used to check whether a race/faction will ambush you or will offer you services and missions. They will change according to your choices and acting during the campaign, and you are always informed by a message like "Your are now allied/friend/... with ThisRace." (as said, that only means that ThisRace now considers you as an ally/friend/...)

If you intend to play and act more RPG, you'll want to consider "active" diplomatic ratings, which rate how your hero's race/faction consider the other races/factions. They are obtained by reversing the first table below and they have no incidence on the campaign, except if you base your own choices on them, or if you choose your class according to them, either to play a well integrated character, or a renegade/niche hero (e.g. a Daemon Dark Druid, a "Bluebeard" Knight Lichelord).

Hereafter, (M) means that the relationship is mutual or shared, and thus appears in both tables (as when your are your enemy's enemy).

Diplomatic scores
The starting diplomatic scores (DS) are unknown, but the way they affect the diplomatic ratings below can be found in the game data files. Max score is +20 and min score is - 1000.

As you can see, there is no symmetry, and as most of the successful deeds that are rewarded by increasing your diplomatic score toward a race are moreover capped at +15, that means that you'll lose your alliance with this race at the first misbehaviour. On the opposite, multiple misbehaviours toward a race can bring you so deep in the negative, that raising the diplomatic score up to + 15 may prove to be very difficult or impossible without angering another race...

Interpretation (a try!)

 * Barbarians consider neighbour, trade-partner civilizations as friendly, and this doesn't prevent them to raid their lands! Minotaurs are known to Ariochs, Ssrathi are known to Darosi travellers (and possibly local jungle tribesmen from Keshan), the Diraquine Empire is known to Darosi and partly federates barbarian tribes in Northen Diraq, the Selentine Empire is known to Trargites. Barbarians value the fight and do honor to honorable opponents but they have one mortal, and mutual, enemy: the Swarm that pushes eastwards to Northen Diraq and southwards to Daros. On their turn, Barbarians are appreciated by the Dwarves who remember a centuries-long trading partnership with the ancestors of Siria and perhaps of the Lysean Empire. They know that Barbarians are not a threat to their activities. Wood Elves too consider the Barbarians as potential allies when properly guided. They represent the aspect of Humanity that is the most attuned to Nature, even if the Trargite can't help but raid Sylvermyr every so often, and the K'Elenak slaughtered one of the Seven Fleet a long time ago. For the same reason, and perhaps because they harassed the Dwarves on their migration to the North, Dark Dwarves still feel very resentful towards them and their technophobia.
 * Daemons consider all of the Horsemen's troops as their friends but their mutual consideration for Plague and Swarm creatures is not so returned by the Undead, although a fire using faction too. Perhaps, Lord Bane consider them as competitors: when the soul is harvested, the corpse can't be raised anymore. Dark Elves are long-time daemons, and fire-, summoners and as such, they are regarded as potential allies. One may question however why Daemons consider the Ssrathi so friendly and this could be because of their tropism for fire, or more generally because they have a secret power for summoning this element and perhaps Nagas are summoned daemons as well (also, see what happened on the Sundered Isle). The Ssrathi, on the their turn, are not particularly fond on Daemons and consider them just as every other faction. Daemons hate the High Elves, the Fey, and the Knights who all consider them in return as utterly foreign to Etheria, and thus organically evil.
 * Dwarves
 * Dark Dwarves
 * High Elves
 * Dark Elves
 * Wood Elves
 * Empire
 * Fey are benevolent towards Elves and this is a mutual acceptance. Except those Dark Elves. The Fey have perhaps helped and taught the first race and they consider them like their children or their watchmen. The Fey help the Wood Elves and the High Elves whenever they can be provided enough crystal to magically summon the units. Fey and Daemons seem to look at each other like antithetical beings. The Fey deeply associate themselves to Etheria and the Daemons simply aren't. They are marked as the foul progeny of outwordly enemy deities, which neither the Undead, the Swarm or the Plaguelords are before the Fey's eyes. Now what's about the Barbarians and the Minotaurs? Why do the Fey hate them so much? As with the other mistrust and hatred between races, it either roots to the grand story, or to local, small stories. On one hand, both barbaric factions represent a form of chaos for the Fey, the shamanic Orcs wouldn't. On the other hand, they are violent, straightforward people and they despise the use of magic and too much of cunning, both seen as disloyal trickery. The occasional, local Fey are the opposite. Their physical frailness and inclination toward mischief and cunning just make them fall in the category of small game. They can't be valuable opponents nor slaves, but they may be fun to pluck. Until the resentful Fey get angry and gather to retaliate.
 * Knights
 * Minotaurs are forever grateful to the Dark Dwarves for "teaching" them basic ironwork to augment themselves and how to build basic siege machines, back on their migration to the North. Not only the Dark Dwarves don't care, but they may be resentful for the lesson Minotaurs taught them the hard way in return... Well, this is one of the oddities found in the tables. All the other factions are regarded as neutral, either as valuable opponents or as potential slaves. The exception to the rule are the peaceful Ssrathi. The reason why they are hated by Minotaurs could take root in a primitive and innate aversion for reptilian lifeforms.
 * Orcs
 * Plaguelords' relation to the world is simple. They and the Daemons appreciate each other, because plagued creatures are just like "daemonized", tainted native lifeforms, and because their Lord is a daemonic deity, and they hate all kind of Dwarves, because they were scared by those from Khaz-Barak at the starting, and they proved to be their first and only opponent since a long time (human tribes were no match for disease carriers). All the other factions are regarded as neutral as long as they don't interfere with Lord Antharg's agenda. Then there are the Orcs, or rather the Goblins, who regard the Plaguelords as valuable trading partners and objective potential allies against the Humans in the Sserin Jungle. And there are the High Elves who despise them as the twisted and daemonic creatures that they are (they are just Daemons for the righteous High Elves). Curiously, the Fey and the Knights are not so concerned. It's perhaps because Antharg is now part of Etheria, and he seems to have settle far away enough from all civilization (save for the unlucky Baraki Dwarves).
 * Ssrathi are a new people. They don't know much of the rest of Etheria save for the invading Empire of Selentia, which they are mutual enemies with. All the other people get their chance as they are regarded as neutral. Darosi, and perhaps Keshani, tribesmen have heard of this peaceful people, and Wood Elves tend to regard with benevolence these wise people who consider themselves as warden of their nature grounds, when they get a chance to meet them. In one way, they are their jungle counterpart. Now there is another faction which would regard the Ssrathi as potential allies, and they are the Daemons! Either because they are fire-users, or they are somewhat linked to the Netherworld (we don't know much of their religion, but Iriki and the Nagas are admittedly quite strange)(Couatl is not a daemonic deity, though), or simply because those isolated Southerners may be spared until the end of the Daemons' agenda... the generic Daemon officer will be quite well disposed toward a Ssrathi interlocutor (for what is worth in the campaign). The fact that Dark Dwarves consider both Daemons and Ssrathi as potential partners could be another hint to explain these complex (a priori) relationships, because there are no reasons Dark Dwarves would know the Ssrathi before hand. Perhaps the Dark Dwarves recognize that the Ssrathi would just behave like them, and use all means necessary to warrant their survival and even their primacy, without being unduly worried about such things as Good or Honor. Minotaurs dislike Ssrathi at sight, either because of an innate aversion to all that is snake-related, or because of their extensive use of poison, and ambush tactics, which are weapons for the coward and the feeble. Lastly, we have the Dwarves. While they have no good reason to hate the Ssrathi first hand (the Dark Elves do use poison too), we shall remember that the short people is very "anthropocentrist" and shun all non human and non elven people (which are shunned as well when they turn to be at odds with them, of course).
 * The Swarm
 * Undead

The Campaign Bonus
Campaign Bonuses are abilities that help your hero out during battles. These bonuses are passive and none have any requirements to activate. There are 15 Campaign Bonuses in total, out of these 3 are story related and have no affect on the hero. Campaign Bonuses only affect your hero during Campaign Scenarios, they will not affect your hero outside the campaign. These bonuses are gained by completing various scenarios in the campaign.

Retinue Units
During the campaign, it is possible to recruit certain units for your hero's retinue. Before they can be hired, many of these units have requirements that can depend on the completion of certain scenarios or even the hero's alignment to the settlement's race.

Ragnar the Frost Dragon