The Price of Loyalty is best approached as a set of demanding Heroes II campaigns, not as a slow sandbox. The expansion gives you four campaign arcs, new map locations, artifacts, recruit sites, barriers, spell scrolls, and a Necromancer structure that can change the value of long fighting routes. Winning consistently comes from tempo: taking ground early, keeping your strongest hero supplied, and using each map’s special objects before the enemy snowballs.
This guide is spoiler-light. It focuses on habits that carry across the long Price of Loyalty and Descendants campaigns as well as the shorter Wizard’s Isle and Voyage Home campaigns.
Essential Tips
1. Play for the First Week
The opening week decides more than it first appears. Hire a second hero early when the map allows it, consolidate useful troops onto your main hero, and send helpers to scout, flag mines, collect loose goods, or ferry reinforcements. Your first build choices should support the army you can actually use this map, not a perfect late-game town that arrives too late to matter.
If a nearby neutral stack blocks a mine or town, ask whether the fight pays for itself quickly. A costly fight for an isolated pickup can slow the entire campaign, while a clean fight for a mine or dwelling often accelerates everything that follows.
2. Choose Starting Rewards for the Map
Campaign rewards are not cosmetic. Pick the option that helps the current scenario’s pressure point. A combat stat can beat gold on a tiny rush map; gold can beat stats when you need early buildings and troop growth. If your faction is light on magic, do not overvalue a spell reward before you have the mana, guild access, or time to use it.
3. Build One Main Army First
The expansion punishes divided strength. Use secondary heroes for errands, scouting, and delivery chains, but keep your best troops concentrated until the enemy’s first serious push is broken. Splitting your army into two mediocre attackers often creates two losses instead of one victory.
Once you have several towns, you can branch out. Until then, one strong hero with fresh weekly troops is usually safer than multiple heroes waiting for one more stack.
4. Capture Towns Before They Mature
Price of Loyalty maps often become harder if you let opponents sit on castles, dwellings, and mines. A lightly defended town in week one can become a high-tier army later. Push when your main hero has a clean advantage, even if that means leaving a rear area imperfectly explored.
This does not mean charging blindly. Scout roads, check guarded passes, and make sure you can reach safety after a fight. Turn early strength into map control before enemy growth catches up.
5. Use Hero Chains for Weekly Reinforcements
Fresh troops sitting in town do not win battles. Set up delivery heroes so new creatures reach your main army without forcing that hero to spend several turns walking home. Even a short chain between a conquered town and the front can save enough movement to decide a castle race.
Keep the chain simple. One courier gathers troops, another moves them forward, and the main hero keeps attacking. If the enemy breaks through, those couriers can collect defenders and delay a recapture.
6. Exploit AI Targeting Carefully
Old Heroes II AI can be baited, especially in tactical battles. Small stacks can draw attacks away from valuable units, and fast or ranged threats may attract attention before heavier stacks. Use one-unit stacks when they protect your real damage dealers or absorb a dangerous hit.
Do not overdo it. Every extra stack slot has an opportunity cost, and a decoy that blocks your shooters or prevents a key retaliation can backfire. Bring decoys when you have a purpose for them.
7. Respect the Computer’s Map Advantage
Assume enemy heroes know more than you do. They may move with confidence through fogged areas, punish empty towns, or split forces after grabbing new territory. Use that predictability. A tempting empty castle can lure an enemy hero into range; a visible weak hero can make the enemy waste movement; a defended chokepoint can stall a larger army.
The higher the difficulty, the more important this becomes. You are not just beating enemy tactics; you are racing bonus income and perfect information.
8. Treat Barriers and Tents as Main Objectives
Traveller tents and barriers are not side flavor. A password can unlock the real route, a key artifact path, or the next campaign push. When you see a barrier, start looking for the matching tent immediately and plan your hero movement around the detour.
Send a secondary hero if the tent is safe and out of the main path. Use the main hero if guards or enemy patrols make the route dangerous. The mistake is discovering the barrier late, then losing a week retracing roads.
9. Make Map Locations Part of Your Plan
The expansion adds locations that change hero value. Arena visits can sharpen a key hero. Stables give movement for the week and can upgrade cavalry into champions. Mermaids can improve luck for the next sea battle. Sirens grant experience but cost troops, so use them only when the trade is worth it.
Jails are especially important because the freed hero joins whoever opens the cell first. If a jail is reachable and guarded lightly enough, prioritize it before an opponent gets there.
10. Use Spell Scrolls and Artifacts Actively
Spell scrolls can give a hero a specific spell while carried, which matters when a map withholds the perfect mage guild setup. Check new pickups before ending the turn, especially before a siege, sea fight, or barrier puzzle.
Artifacts deserve the same attention. Some are stat boosts, some change damage taken, and the Anduran pieces become much stronger together. Put the best artifacts on the hero doing the fighting.
11. Handle Ghosts Like a Power Tool
Recruitable ghosts can be extremely strong when a map gives you access to Barrow Mounds, because ghost stacks can grow from kills. That power is not equally available everywhere, and it can distort a scenario if you lean on it too hard. Use ghosts when the map offers them, but still protect your economy, castles, and backup troops.
Elemental altars add flexible neutral strength outside normal town growth. Check them when your faction’s weekly income is not enough for the next push.
12. Lean Into Necromancer Snowballing
When you control Necromancer towns, the Evil Shrine can raise the value of future fights by increasing skeleton recovery. That makes clean battles more valuable, especially in longer scenarios. Build it when you expect enough fighting to repay the cost.
Skeleton growth does not excuse reckless losses. A Necromancer army still needs movement, supporting stacks, and enough momentum to turn raised skeletons into map control.
Campaign Priorities
| Priority | Why It Matters |
|---|---|
| Early mines | Gold, wood, ore, and rare goods decide town growth |
| First enemy town | Stops enemy creature growth and opens new recruitment |
| Main hero movement | Every wasted turn delays pressure and reinforcement cycles |
| Password routes | Barriers can hide the real path forward |
| Weekly troop delivery | Fresh troops matter only when they reach the front |
| Artifact focus | Combat artifacts should sit on the fighting hero |
| Hero rescue | Jail heroes can swing scouting, transport, or combat power |
Expansion Tools
Alchemists Tower is your answer to cursed items when you can afford the payment. Arena visits are best saved for heroes you expect to keep using. Hut and Eye of the Magi setups can reveal important areas without risking a scout. Stables are strongest early in a week, when the movement boost has maximum value.
At sea, plan around one-time bonuses before committing to a major fight. On land, think of barriers as route locks and tents as route keys. For artifacts, check whether an item is part of a set before you scatter pieces across different heroes.
Common Mistakes to Avoid
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Do not spend the first week wandering. Early mines, dwellings, and towns are too important to delay for loose pickups.
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Do not split your best army too soon. Two weak pushes are usually worse than one decisive attack.
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Do not leave fresh troops parked in town. Build a courier chain so growth reaches the front.
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Do not ignore tents after seeing a barrier. Password routes can decide the scenario path.
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Do not treat every new location as free value. Sirens, guarded rewards, and detours can cost more than they give.
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Do not give key artifacts to idle heroes. Your fighting hero should carry the tools that win fights.
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Do not rely on ghosts being available everywhere. Barrow Mounds are map-dependent, and your broader plan still matters.
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Do not let enemy towns mature untouched. A town you could capture early can become a late-game problem.
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Do not waste Stables late in the week. Visit early when the movement boost has more turns to pay off.
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Do not fight every neutral stack automatically. Fight when the reward advances your economy, route, or army.
Summary
| Category | Top Tip |
|---|---|
| Opening | Use week one to seize mines, towns, and tempo |
| Heroes | Keep one main army and use others as scouts and couriers |
| Economy | Capture growth sites before opponents build up |
| AI | Use decoys and lures, but respect enemy map knowledge |
| Routes | Treat tents and barriers as major objectives |
| Locations | Time Arena, Stables, Jail, Sirens, and Magi visits deliberately |
| Artifacts | Move combat items to the hero doing the work |
| Necromancy | Build Evil Shrine when repeated fighting will repay it |
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5 checked for this guideEvery factual claim in this guide was checked against at least two independent sources before publication. These are the references used for Heroes of Might and Magic II: The Price of Loyalty.
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