Cold sunrise
This guide is made without lowering any fps or hz on a modern computer. This makes monster spawn faster and buildings build slower. The vailla campaign of majesty 2 is very hard like this but Cold sunrise is even harder.
This is the strategies I found to win the 9 maps. Seeing how hard the game is, anything but perfection will fail on some maps. The level guide will feature heavy spoliers about the map layout and the objectives.
Just like in majesty 2, saving your game doesn't work without triggering massive unit spawns. If u fail u have to restart most missions.

It is very important in cold sunrise to select lords, to train them and to get as many upgrades as possible for them.

Chapter 1 will add a new enemy to the game, fire mage. The objective on how to win is not crystal clear, it's pretty much 3 steps:
1. Survive
2. When stable, make 12000 gold
3. Wait for 20 minutes or so while caravans finish the map

With these 3 things in mind, surviving is very hard. Here is how u do it.
At the start of the game lower speed to 0.2.
Build 2 rangers guild one slighty southwest of the castle and one slighly southeast.
As soon as 1 builder walked to each one, build 2 rogues guilds and place them just south of your ranger guilds.
Make sure u leave an open space in the middle of the 4 guilds just south of your castle. After you placed the 4 buildings u can increase the speed again.
Next set 2 exploartion flags west, one near the bottom that will reveal a trading post and one abit further up to the west. This one will reveal a cave + a graveyard.
Meanwhile while your buildings are halfway finished place a market in the middle, between your 4 guilds.
Most of the time one of your guilds will finish, but if u are unlucky enough wolves will spawn and destroy one of your guilds. If this happens u have to restart the map.
Wait for your units to scout, if u placed the flags correctly u will find:
1 wolf camp close to base, 2 graveyards ontop of each other abit to the southwest, 1 trading post next to the graveyards with a cave next to it.
One more cave abit north and one more graveyard to the northwest.
Place 100g bounty flag on the 2 graveyards that are ontop of each other.
Place 100g bounty flags on the other camps too.
If u are quick enough 0-1 of the graveyards will spawn units when destroyed.
When your market finishes building research hp potion and regen amulet. Don't research mana potion.
Build a trading post. Don't upgrade it or place any turrets near it, the units that spawn in later will not attack the trading post or the caravan.
Place an exploartion flag southeast of the trading post, if done correctly u find another cave, place 100g bounty on it.
Start building 2 towers ontop of each other just west of your west rangers guild. When they are finished, upgrade them and place 2 more towers just east of your east rangers guild.
Place a blacksmith south of your market. In cold sunrise, blacksmith gives income.
Next place two exploration flags to the north east to reveal a snake nest + another trading post.
Place the other flag more to the east to reveal a lightning element spawn.

By now u will get attacked by firemages from the west, if u been fast enough your towers to the west will have finished building and the mages will die without doing anything.
Place a 200g bounty flag on the lightning element spawn.
There is a cutscene that unlocks a sidequest on this map, hopefully u didn't find that yet, if u did u can not destroy the lightning elemental nest.
Place 100g bounty flag on the snake nest + the wolf nest just northeast of your castle.
Upgrade your 2 towers east of the range guild.
By now u get attacked from the east, but if your 2 towers are up the mages will die once more.
To the east of u there are 2 graveyards ontop of each other, place an explore flag if u didn't reveal them already, then set 100g bounty flags on them.
Further east is another wolf nest just south of the elementals, set 100g bounty on it.
Buy 250g weapon and armor upgrades for rogues and rangers.
Upgrade ranger and rogues guild to level 2.
Upgrade market to level 2. Build magic bazaar when u can.

By now u will get attacked again, this time it will be one more mage and u get attacked from both sides at the same time.
The fire mages are very good at focusing down your income buildings. Don't explore to much so your troops are elsewhere.
By now u should have triggered the elemental quest that spawn 3 lighting elementals, kill them when u can for a 6k gold reward.
After the elementals are gone, place a 2nd trading post to the northeast and place a tower next to it, u might need a 200g defend flag on it.
When it is finished upgrade the tower + the trading post.
Upgrade market to level 2 and research the ring, don't buy mana potions.
Keep exploring east when u are not getting attacked, destroying any nest on the way.

By now u will be attacked by mages + archers of helia from the west and the east, they will likely destroy your turrets and if unlucky more.
As long as u have 2 trading posts u can take some losses.
Build a 3rd rangers guild + rogues guild when u can and upgrade the first one u built to level 3. Get blacksmith to level 2 and get those upgrades.
You can rebuild 3 towers on each side if u want, but it's very expensive.
Eventually your units will be high enough levels to easily kill the invading mages. Inbetween fights find the 2 ogre lairs north and northeast of your northeast trading post.
There is a 3rd trading post further east from your castle along with many monsters camps. Explore everything around it, destroy them and build a trading post.
Just like with the first u built the mages and archers will not attack it aslong as u don't upgrade it or build a tower.
Stay stable, upgrade units, armor, rebuild buildings and resurrect your units.

When u have about 10k gold place an explore flag at northwest corner.
You will find many monster camps here, be careful not to overcommit in destroying them as that could leave your base defeceless, losing the map.
Mark one at a time with 500g bounty.
There will be a road going from after the water all the way to the northwest corner.
Build 3 towers and upgrade them when u can with some space between them on this road.
Clear out all monsters camps, there is one graveyard that is easy to miss.
Finally when u reach 12k gold, caravans will spawn every now and then and travel by themself to the northwest corner.
The advisor suggets u to guard them, but it's better to not do this.
Keep defeding your base for about 20 minutes, after enough caravans have traveld on the road protected by towers, u will win the map.

Pick a rogue as your lord after the mission.

Build a 2nd range guild + a 2nd rouges guild in the start. Build a warriors guild + clerics guild when u can and upgrade the palace.
Make two parties with rogue, cleric, ranger, warrior.
Start taking out the camps u discover. Don't attack the big undead camp to the east. Around level 8 with lvl 3 rogues guild u can easily kill the werewolf.
Discover the ogre + it's den in the northeast and the barbarian camp in the northwest.
You need about 10 days to kill the ogre and it's lair, but it should be easy enough to do before day 80.

Pick a rogue as your lord after the mission.

To the east of u are lots of undead, ignore them all map, don't bother trying to destroy or fight them.
The dwarves will stop attacking if u kill the imps in the northeast corener of the map. This is quite hard to pull of tho.
Explore the mid section of the map to find the elf camp, this is your primary mission.
With them alive u get extra gold, with them dead u lose the map.
Focus on your own base and survival first, there are alot of monsters attacking u.
When u can, send defence flags, build extra camps and turrets at your elf ally location.
I found it easier to leave one elf spawning building up and having everything else destroyed.
Take out the element camps nearby, mark werewolfs and secure trading posts.
With time the elfs will be high enough level to actually kill some dwarves instead of them all running away.
There is one trading post to the west, find it and secure it.
Explore the map and destroy lairs on the way, but don't overcommit, or else your ally will die.
When u feel confident, attack the imps in the northeast corner.
Focus your blacksmith on getting max equip for rangers.

Pick a ranger as your lord after the mission.

At first glace this mission seems very hard. The enemy u face have a sick base that is very hard to take down.
The attacks are big and strong and have a habit of ignoring your units and focus on your buildings.
There is also an ice mage, which once again with poor mission description tricks u into thinking it is your goal.
Don't explore the ice mage, u can explore around it however.
Mark the monsters lairs u find.
For defence, look north, close to the enemy base.
There is only one path the enemy will use to attack u, setup a big killbox with turrets up here and build your units camps behind them.
What will happen is the enemy will attack, most will die to turrets, some will sneak through, when many units die they will retreat and when they retreat they die to turrets.
With this setup holding your base becomes very easy.
As soon as the mission start, upgrade the palace to level 2, then build a rangers guild and a warrior guild slightly north. Send explore flag north to find the 5 undead camps. Mark them as u get gold while training rangers and warriors. If u are quick, u be rewarded 10k gold. Build a 2nd ranger guild and two basic towers close to market. Explore east to find a pesant house, destroy it for 5000 gold.

As for the actual mission objective u need 50 000 gold. Work on securing your defence and the turrets while destroying monster camps first.
Don't attack the enemy base, it's a waste of time and gold.
When u have 50 000 gold send a scout to the ice mages, instantly winning the map.
If u accidently discover it before hand there will spawn a big elemental that u have to kill aswell, this is good xp so could be worth doing either way.
Focus your blacksmith on getting max equip for rangers.

Pick a ranger as your lord after the mission.

This mission is semi random, be very careful with exploration. If your units don't explore directly north or northwest this mission is easy. If they do however it's not really possible to win.
You will be attacked by tons of units mostly dragons, wolves, bears, ghosts. What u need in the start is market, rangers guild, hall of lords and clerics guild.
As soon as the clerics guild is finished upgrade it to lvl 2 and research the anti-undead spell.
To the north east of u there will be two monsters camps, one bear den and one hermits camp.
Very close, slightly west of the bear den are two elemental camps. If u don't discover these elemental camps they just sit there, peacefully.
If u do discover it tho, it starts a timed quest, that when u fail it will spawn 10+ elementals.
The goal here is to destroy the bear den and the hermit camp without exploring the elemental camps.
Upgrade your rangers and clerics and get one rogue and two rangers from the hall of lords.
Defend your base from the crazy amount of monsters, with time one lightning elemental will attack too, but with your hall of lord units it's easy to kill.
As per usual in the dlc, ignore every tip or quest that the advisor suggests.
Upgrade your palace when u can and build an inn.
Make a party with one cleric and your 3 hall of lords units.
Explore the elemental camps, kill all elementals and destroy the two camps.
After this the mission becomes very easy.
Take all the time in the world to explore, destroy more monsters lairs and level up your units.
Get max level blacksmith and make sure your lord units buy the best equip possible.
It's recommended that the two lord rangers both get level 25 and one extra ranger reaching level 20+.
If your units lack gold u can place a 5000 bounty flag to defend your palace.
When u feel ready to finish the mission send one scout to the hermit camp in southeast corner.
This will make the beastmasters hostile.
Kill all the beastmaters and destroy their camp to finish the mission.

Pick a ranger as your lord after the mission.

Intro:
An insane map that will test your patience and makes u question what u did wrong in life to end up at this map.
The map is esentially 4 stages.
Stage 1 is from day 1-20
Stage 2 is from day 20-30
Stage 3 is from day 30-50
Stage 4 is from day 50-61 (yes u need day 61 to finish not day 60)

Stage 1
Instantly set speed to 0.2
Upgrade your palace and then build a 2nd dwarf camp next to the one u already start with.
Research health potion in the market.
Place 8 or so explorer flags all around the map.
Place 100 or 200 gold attack flags on everything south, south east and east of base, make sure u find the bear den in the southeast and the pyramid close to it.
When palace finish upgrading, upgrade market to level 3.
Train 3 dwarfs when u have the gold, research everything in market except for mana potion.
Mark the rest of the camps that u found.
On day 10 place a 200g fear flag next to your starting towers in the southeast.
On day 11 firemages will spawn, most of the times they will get hit by both towers killing all of them. If u are unlucky they will all split to the west.
If this happens they will destroy one tower. If this happens u have to restart the map.
Keep destroying monster lairs, u can ignore the snake nest in the northeast corner.
Build a temple of augrela when u have the gold for it. When it's finished find two lvl 8 clerics and upgrade them. Research the resurection spell from the temple.
Build a library and upgrade it when u can.
Upgrade warriors guild and clerics guild to lvl 3, buy all upgrades for warrior and the mana restore spell from the clerics. Don't buy any other cleric spells.
Buy the two poison spells in rogues guild, but don't upgrade it, buy the 200g spell in rangers guild but don't upgrade it.
Research all 250g weapons/armor in blacksmith.
Research all the dwarf and elf spells.
Buy 3 lords from the lords guild, high level rangers are very helpful. If u followed the guide so far u should have 3 rangers as lords.
On day 20 a big army of mages will spawn, you must let them destroy your 2 towers in southeast and after that die to your units defending the dwarf camp.

Stage 2
After the mages die, instantly place an inn and 2 dwarf towers to the southeast where the mages spawned.
When the inn is finished u need to make 8 parties, with one healer and one tank in each. This is tricky to pull off.
Defend your turrets down in the south east, place bounty flags on any mages that manages to sneak away.
Keep making parties, research stone incantation in the library when u can.
Resurect units with your spell, saving tons of gold.
Build 1 more tower when u can, u need to have 3 standing before day 30.
Build a 4th tower if u have the gold for it.
Place a defence flag on the inn.
Research the heal spell in the library.

Stage 3
Keep at it, make parties, build towers and place new defence flags. Get a 4th tower when u can.
On day 30 a huge army of a mix between fire mages and archers of helia will spawn. From now on it will spawn many archers.
Your goal is to hold the towers in the southeast all the way to day 50. It is recommended to slow the speed down everytime a new wave spawns to not lose any towers and be able to resurect units.
You don't need to build or research anything else in town, save all your gold for spells.
Shortly after day 30, 3 new monster lairs will spawn to the west, mark them all.
On day 40 this happens again, mark them again.
More monster lairs will spawn later, but u can ignore all of them.
Keep holding out in the southeast, with 4 towers and 16+ units u can hold out to day 50 like this.

Stage 4
Around day 50 the spawns will be more frequent, higher lvls and more units, it's likely your defence in the southeast will fail at this point.
If u got to this stage, save your game.
Next guard those mages, it is near impossible to keep all 6 alive, so focus on 2.
You can use the heal spell for 250 gold to heal the mages.
Everytime an enemy comes close to the mages, slow down the speed to 0.2 and heal them up.
When u beat a wave, save the game.
Resurect dwarves/elfs/priests and mby clerics and let everything else die.
Keep slowing down speed, healing and then saving the game after every wave.
If all mages die, load your old save.
Sometimes the fire mages will hit the ice mage lairs instead of the ice mages.
Sometimes they will also hit your library, and when it goes down u can no longer heal.
After day 55 or so most of the enemies will come from southeast and walk through the middle instead of splitting.
When this happens u can move your defence flag further out to avoid the library being destroyed.
Keep saving/loading and hopefully u can stall long enough to reach day 61.
This mission took me many restarts.

It is very important that u pick a priest as your lord after the mission.

Just like previous missions this has some rng to it, by chance u will get scouted by an enemy ranger between day 2 and day 25, the later it finds u the easier the mission is.
Train 4 ice mages.
Place a rangers guild to the east of your palace, it should reveal an ogre den.
Place 100g bounty on the ogre den, this should level up the ice mages abit.
Train 1 ranger and make him explore west, finding two graveyards, three wolf dens and a hermit house in the process. Place attack bounties on them too.
Most of the time your ice mages will do this without dieing, if they die however it will cost to much gold to resurect them and u will have to restart the mission.
Unlock health potions.
Save 2000 gold and upgrade your palace.
Build a warrior guild and train 3 warriors. Train two more rangers.
Place 2 normal guard towers near the river crossing.
On a day 10-15 days after u got scouted, (seems to be some rng, but usually day 18) u will be attacked by a a big army of rogues, warriors, clerics and rangers. If u have 4 ice mages all level 5+ it should not pose any threat.
Research armor and weapon upgrade for mages, if your blacksmith got destroyed build it further to the east.
Since the day of the attack is rng depending on when u got scouted, u could have way more both units and turrets before the attack happens.
Build a hall of lords and train 2 rangers.
Just like on mission 4, the ai will be very good at ignoring your units and go straight for buildings, rebuild what u have to rebuild.

Build a inn, upgrade it and research party training.
Make a clerics guild and train 3 clerics.
Make 3 parties with warrior, ranger, cleric, ice mage.
Attack the enemy across the river and take out the north part of ai town.
Build two trading posts on the trade spots. Don't upgrade them just like on the first mission. You need this done before day 30.
Don't overcommit and go for the bank in southeast corner as that will make u to weak to counterattacks.
Upgrade your market and then build a magic bazaar. Upgrade blacksmith to level 2.
Build as many towers and dwarf towers u can and place them next to where the enemy base was next to the river crossing.
The enemy will attack u every few days and on day 39 there will be a huge attack on your base, be ready.
After the attack on day 39, secure your two trading posts by destroying any leftover buildings close by. Don't go for the ai hall of lords in southeast corner.

With the posts secure the mission simply even stops trying. From here on it's a cakewalk. Stock up on blacksmith for a better icemage lord after the mission, don't explore anything else.
Recruit the priest from last mission from the hall of lords, have it stock up on blacksmith gear.
When u are ready,
There is a graveyard close to the middle red base. It will spawn some skeleton, vampires and a 5k hp lich. Killing those will start sending waves of undead against the ai.
These waves alone can finish the mission for u without doing anything else.

It is very important that u pick an ice mage as your lord after the mission.

You think the threat of the mission would be the triple threat that the mission hints on, but those 3 will not attack u at all until very late in the game.
The threat is actually to survive the early game from the many beasts and undead. This is not very hard at all tho.

Build 2 rangers guilds and 1 clerics guild next to the trading post. Train 6 rangers.
Explore abit northeast, finding one bear den, one wolf den, one graveyard and one anicent crypt. You need all of these destroyed before day 15.
Mark the 4 dens and build a trading post, place two towers close to it, one northwest and one southeast.
Research healthpotions.
Train 3 clerics.
Build a warriors guild and train 3 warriors, place the warriors guild close to the market.
Upgrade the towers and the trading post when u can.
If u encounter the side quest with the helia archer and the ratmen, just ignore them for now.
Slightly to the southeast of the trading post there is a cave, take it out after u destroyed the first 4 camps.
Scout west of your palace to find 3 graveyards and a cave, don't mark them yet.
Scout north from your palace to find a wolf den, mark it. Be careful not to scout to much north tho as it will trigger a timed quest. Don't mark the graveyards/crypt/portals close by if u find them.
Upgrade clerics guild and research holy attack.
Build a blacksmith. Research the 250 gold weapon and armor for warriors.
Research amulet of regeneration in the market.
Place a tower next to your market. Place 2 more when u have the gold.
Upgrade your palace to level 2.
Build a 2nd clerics guild and train 3 more clerics.
Upgrade market to level 2 and build a magic bazaar.
Upgrade rangers guild to level 2 and research accurate shot.
Build 2 rogues guild and train 6 rogues.
Build 1 more warrior guild and train 3 warriors.
Around day 25 u will be attacked by elementals from the north.
Build an inn and create 6 parties with 1 rogue, 1 cleric, 1 ranger and 1 warrior.
Take out the graveyards and the cave to the west.
Upgrade palace to level 3, followed by market to level 3.
Research everything in the market. Research all 250 gold weapons and armors in the blacksmith.
Upgrade rangers guild, warriors guild, rogues guild and clerics guild to level 3, research everything except for hammer of faith.
Upgrade blacksmith to level 2 and research lvl 2 weapons/armor for everyone.
To the north there is a protect goblin quest for 30 days, aswell as some more monsters dens. Defend the goblins for 30 days and destroy the 5 ratman nests meanwhile. You need to start this before day 50, or the quest will fail.
Build a temple of dauros on the holy site next to the trading post.
Build hall of lords.
Build 2 dwarf towers close to peasant houses, there seems to be a bug on this mission that if all houses gets destroyed u be stuck with 0 builders for the rest of the mission.
Train 2 paladins and buy the priest + the ice mage from hall of lords, create 1 more party with 2 paladins, ice mage and priest.
Upgrade blacksmith to level 3 and research everything when u have the gold. Blacksmith level 4 is to expensive and takes to long.
Explore freely, Watch out for the archers of helia army, one of them is level 100. To the northeast of your palace is a bearman den, take it out.
When both the quests are finished, the ai will summon units and fight for u, just like last mission they will be very powerful.
Resurect your units and reform parties.
The yellow ai palace is in the northwest, as soon as he leaves for ogre hunting send all your own to destroy the palace. The goblins should have taken down his towers, saving u time. Don't fight his archer army.
Build a 2nd trading post to the north when yellow and purple are gone, upgrade blacksmith to 4 and research everything.
Try and get ice mage, one paladin and priest to buy full level 4 upgrades. Use defence flags on your palace to generate gold for your units. This will make next mission alot easier.
Finish the mission by taking out whatever is left standing, which will probably be red in the middle. The purple ai will die to the ratmen.
Way later, around day 140 the red ai will attack u with alot of fire mages, this can make u lose the mission fairly easily. Make sure u finish before this happens.

It is very important that u pick a paladin as your lord after the mission.

Since there are no monsters spawns, u can actually save game on this mission without an issue.
Here we are, the last mission. The kicker is u can only use lords. Recruit paladin, ice mage and priest and have them form a party.
If your hall of lords gets destroyed u will lose the mission, u also don't have any palace and can't build anything, u can also not resurect your units if they die.

Start by exploring slightly east, u will find an elixir that the advisor will say boosts your party, but it's not clear if it actually does anything. You also find a small red camp. Take it out.
Your units will attack buildings without attack flags on this mission.
Explore abit north of here to find a friendly camp, u need to find 4 of these.
In the northeast corner u will find the 2nd camp.
Here u will also find a library and a blacksmith allowing u to heal your units. Your units can also buy max gear in the blacksmith if they don't already have it.
Take out the red camp with fire mages close to the northeast camp.
Let your units go back to the start and rest then explore west, finding the 3rd camp.
Take out the nearby red camp.
Explore the northwest corner to find the 4th camp, completing the sidequest. Here u will also find a market allowing restock of potions.
With the sidequest complete the ai will summon units and attack your enemy.
Take out the nearby red camp to the east.
Explore the map if u are missing any spots, take out any red camp that isn't the big middle one.
Take out the red main camp along with your ally, allowing your units to go back rest if needed. Save the game every now and then so u don't accidently die.
There is a bug abuse u can use by saving when the teal units are in red base and then loading the game. Doing this resets the timer for the red ai to summon new units.
Keep saving/loading to prevent him from getting any units, making taking out the castle very easy.
It is possible for the ai to take out the red enemy all on it's own, but it takes about 6 hours, could leave computer on overnight if u are feeling lazy. In order for this to work tho u have to down the red ai marketplace.
When the castle is destroyed, one final tanky mage will spawn but it should be easy to take out.
With that the mission is done, sadly the last mission wasn't much of a challenge. GG and WP.

Hopefully this guide helped any brave soul that took on the challenge of cold sunrise.
I'm sure these are not the only way to beat the 9 chapters, but this is what worked for me.
Go in peace your majesty <3