Sometimes, you can avoid the "Month of Plague" by building something. Or, load a Saturday instead of a Sunday. Or, wait ten to twenty seconds and then generate the map again. Or, turn off the computer and then turn it back on.
But not always. That's when you have to switch to a different version of "Heroes."
You can transfer a save from the Russian "The Restoration of Erathia" to the English "The Shadow of Death." The reverse doesn't work. "The Restoration of Erathia" simply doesn't "see" that save. But I don't really need to transfer it back.
There's a difference in the computer's tactics in these two versions of "Heroes." Even on the "The Restoration of Erathia" map using the "The Shadow of Death" engine, the computer is afraid to enter the moat when attacking a town because it remembers that the moat deals damage, even though that's not actually the case. That's all.