Neutral Campaign 1: Scenario 2 - "Gold Rush"

Objective: Amass 200,000 gold

Starting notes: Your heroes are limited to twelfth level, but you can carry your eight best to the next scenario. Creatures and artifacts don't carry over, but spells do.

	A huge cache of gold is behind this border guard, but you need to find the keymaster's tent to pass.

Bonuses for starting hero (you can pick one):
· Start with three thunderbirds
· Start with two cyclops kings
· Start with the one ancient behemoth

Starting towns: Two stronghold towns

Starting resources: 30W, 15M, 30O, 15S, 15C, 15Ge, 30000G

Other towns: There are four castle towns. There is one castle town on your continent to the northeast. One castle town is located on the southeastern continent, and the other two castle towns are on the northeastern continent. The easiest way to those continents is via the underground passage.

Notes: This scenario shouldn't be too hard. It's a tossup between the three starting bonuses. All are good. You can take one of two approaches with this scenario. You can either take over all the mines and the one town on your continent, or journey through the one subterranean gate on your continent to venture forth and conquer the other two continents on this map. Both are accessible through the gate or by purchasing a ship from an external shipyard on the southeastern coast of your continent.

If you decide to stay put, you can easily win this scenario, but it will take a little longer and your heroes won't gain nearly as much experience. What you do is simply build up two large armies, watch the subterranean gates for any encroaching enemy heroes, and then wait for your treasury to fill to 200,000 gold. There is one more town on your continent that can contribute to your efforts, and two gold mines on this continent as well.

If you decide you want to take the strategy of complete domination, it will be significantly harder, but you'll get a lot of gold quickly. The best way to get gold is to travel north of your strongholds, where you will see ten piles of gold blocked off by a red border guard. Each pile is worth 10,000 gold. The keymaster's tent to this border guard is on the northeastern continent. However, blocking the way to this tent is a purple border guard. Fortunately, the tent to this guard is right next to your first stronghold town. Once you get past the purple guard and enter the red tent, you'll be able to open up the red guard and take the ten piles of gold. And if you can survive on the northeastern continent, you might as well take the two castle towns and the two gold mines there as well and end the scenario quickly.