Trap Map: Desecration (with video)

Name	Desecration
Minimum level	136
Maximum number of participants	3
Size of a party	main + 2
Time limit	40 min
Total number of vehicles allowed	1
Entry fee	13.2 M
Total upgrade cost	20 M
Catapult cost	15 M
Reward	10 x Chieftain’s Treasure (“200 gc”)
XP victory bonus	1,575 M

Updated on 2012-03-11.

Peeing on an altar… Ok, not really. Your task is to advance and destroy the altar at the end of the map (labelled “Altar”). This mission is somewhat difficult for several reasons:

1. Too many monsters are able to cast forest prison. You get somewhat moody when your whole party is frozen and gets slowly slaughtered. I haven’t found a good antidote against it – except the usual: spread out, kill fast, endure and hope for the best. Which actually works.

2. The summon portals. Handling the summon portals is the key to success in this mission.

Luckily the summon portals only start to spawn when their direct predecessor is destroyed. In this article I will call them SP1 (in S9), SP2 (in L9), SP3 (in G9) and SP4 (in B4). I tried several strategies to apply this information to good use.

The usual sequence of tackling them would be 1234. That leads to a huge amount of spawns at SP4 because the distance between SP3 and SP4 is larger than usual. And you don’t want spawned mobs at that place. Because if you approach it chances are that the prespawned monsters of the boss area and the bosses themselves (there are two of them) will come and disturb you while the spawned monsters aren’t dealt with yet.

Much better is 1243. SP3 for whatever reason only summons every 7th turn after the Three Gateways Patch. So you can position one mass damage dealer (like cannon main or sheriff) with your oracle behind SP3, ready to take out newly spawned monsters while your catapult and your remaining damage dealer kill the monsters before SP4 and finally take out SP4 itself. After that you destroy SP3 and then march into the boss area.

While that strategy was mandatory before the Three Gateways patch, when SP3 summoned every 3rd turn, it is not necessary anymore if you can kill normal monsters with one shot (if sethed). Then you are fast enough to take out the summoned monsters of SP3 and advance straightaway to the boss area, killing all in your way and letting SP3 and SP4 stand. The next summon will occur 7 turns later and the monsters need time to reach your base, so you have about 12 turns (even more if you are lucky) to finish the mission.

This is the strategy step for step:

1. Approach the stockades. Don’t touch SP1; kill all monsters with your cannon main that you can reach instead.

2. Breach the stockades. You get a cut-scene, and yay! This time (only this time) you get a double turn! Remember: usually you get no double turns in African missions.

3. Clear remaining monsters around SP1. Then position sheriff and oracle so that you can easily wipe out new spawns of SP1.

Spawn control

4. While oracle and sheriff remain at SP1, advance with cannon main (and if you want, carefully with your catapult) and try to kill the monsters on the way to SP2.

5. Move cannon main and catapult back, so that they can bombard SP1 (they stand now between SP1 and SP2). Move sheriff and oracle so that you can still control spawns but also in direction of SP2.

6. Destroy SP1. You get a cut-scene but no double turn.

7. Advance to SP2, clear all remaining monsters.

8. Only start to destroy SP2 when your group is behind SP2 (on the way to SP3).

9. Advance to SP3.

10. Clear remaining monsters around SP3. Position sheriff and oracle so that you can easily wipe out new spawns of SP3. If you can hit hard enough: clear the fresh spawn and advance to step 14, letting SP3 and SP4 stand, otherwise proceed with step 11.

11. While oracle and sheriff remain at SP3, advance with cannon main and catapult carefully. Kill the (very few) monsters on the way to SP4.

12. Destroy SP4 as soon as your range permits it.

13. Move cannon main and cata back to SP3, destroy it. Now the main part of the mission is over.

14. Advance to the area around C2/C3. Probably (at least) two monsters will rush you. Let them. Kill them. Don’t be hasty.

15. If you are lucky only one boss will approach you.  Kill him, then kill the other. General advice here: You have a large free space behind you. Use it, retreat, regroup – but if SP3 and SP4 still stand, keep in mind that monsters of SP3 will spawn eventually, and if you are unlucky some of them will walk to your base.

16. After both bosses are dead, clean up remaining monsters and destroy the Spirit Altar. It has only about 2k hp, so it should fall after one hit from your cannon main, cata or sheriff. And with chance even from your oracle.

Traps: Personally I found only two traps. But there are reports around of more than these two. As usual hints from you where the rest hides are very much appreciated. After the Three Gateways Patch the trap locations seem to have changed, so don’t rely on the trap map too heavily. I will edit it when I know the new locations.

Here is the video with the strategy implemented that I described above (I used the shortcut, letting SP3 and SP4 stand):