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Map Name: Fountain of Doom
Author: Aeris Quamarine
Downloaded: from the maps4heroes map catalog
This is the last map by Aeris that I played. In the comments on maps4heroes for his various works, he repeatedly mentioned that he was preparing a map called Princesses, which was supposed to be the pinnacle of his work, but it seems he didn't finish it.
Fountain is an L-sized map; as far as I understand, it's a hardcore version of the standard Pestilence Lake map. The author himself describes his work as follows: "Extremely impossible map, try it at your own risk." Honestly, I didn't encounter any extreme difficulties during the playthrough, although the map is certainly not easy. In its structure, Fountain of Doom reminded me of Limes Inferior: the same size, the same endless waves of enemy heroes, the same obstacles on the way to the enemy in the form of heavily guarded garrisons that need to be broken through as quickly as possible, and an overall scarcity of resources. The map has many elements that depend on chance: starting castles and heroes, artifacts, spells in cities. Even the castle and, consequently, part of the troops, except for archangels and wizards, as well as the final boss, are randomly generated. On the one hand, this makes each player's playthrough unique; on the other hand, it can either make it easier or more difficult.
I started with a Swamp hero, Gervulf, with the bonus artifact "Necklace of Swiftness." The nearest blue computer turned out to be an Inferno faction. Logistics is banned on the map, but specialists in logistics and heroes who have it as a starting skill still have this valuable skill here. After roughly assessing what is required of the player on this map, I almost immediately switched to Kirra as my main hero, also buying Monera. The task for the first two weeks is to ignore building up my own cities and gather the parts of the Cursed Armor in the center and quickly attack the blue player. He breeds the first two levels of creatures in the central castle. At the same time, he quickly builds up, so the sooner we take him down, the easier it will be for us later. After completely eliminating the blue player by the end of the second week (the joined storms at the very beginning helped a lot), I realized that for further progress, I would have to break through one of the garrisons guarded by megadragons. With this goal in mind, I bought Andra, and Kirra first outsmarted the garrison, removing snipers, wizards, and master djinns from it. At the same time, in the castles, mage guilds were being built at a rapid pace (first for Town Portal, then for Blindness, Berserk, Resurrection, and Prayer). I also placed devils in one of the computer's castles (they were already there in the central one).
Gradually, purple heroes began to appear in the center of the map. Their armies were quite small, but the heroes themselves, when they appeared, encountered an event that gave them experience and mana, as a result of which they were immediately leveled up to level 33. After eliminating such a hero, he can be immediately bought back in his tavern. I had a good laugh at the quality of the computer's leveling. For example, Pikedram learned various schools of magic but didn't learn Wisdom; other heroes didn't learn magic at all but filled their slots with items and training. It seems that the AI doesn't have any prioritization of secondary skills when leveling up. Also, at the beginning of the second month, a level 67 turquoise computer with a huge Inferno army and a Vulnerability Medal appeared. Andra, with Berserk, was able to defeat him and immediately after that broke through the dragon garrison. It turned out to be possible to do everything quickly, before the purple player started getting reinforcements in all the castles. Then, hundreds of gold dragons were killed to learn the Summon Ship spell, and archdevils were placed in the castle to, with the Necklace of Swiftness, outrun the hundred azure dragons that needed to be defeated in the dungeon. Andra found a scholar with Flight and then captured one of the pink player's castles, which can only be done by interrupting flight on an active castle cell, and also flew to the center of the map to the turquoise player's castle, catching him by surprise (there were 46 archdevils that hadn't been bought yet). Only the final pink boss remained, who, in my case, was in a Rampart. I had to deal with Rylando. The battle was without the Sphere of Vulnerability (it is surrendered before the castle through a quest), Rylando's combat stats are 50+ with our 10+, and the computer has a significant advantage in the army. But 73 archdevils, supported by mana-stealing imps, were able to win quite confidently. Victory on 2.3.6 with the Grail dug up (I barely found the digging point in the underground jungle).
After completing the game, I can say that for guaranteed success on this map, you need a hero with a specialty in intelligence and, preferably, all schools of magic, archdevils, artifacts for speed, and good spells in the cities. You can also set all flags to one type of castle (Inferno).
Author: Aeris Quamarine
Downloaded: from the maps4heroes map catalog
This is the last map by Aeris that I played. In the comments on maps4heroes for his various works, he repeatedly mentioned that he was preparing a map called Princesses, which was supposed to be the pinnacle of his work, but it seems he didn't finish it.
Fountain is an L-sized map; as far as I understand, it's a hardcore version of the standard Pestilence Lake map. The author himself describes his work as follows: "Extremely impossible map, try it at your own risk." Honestly, I didn't encounter any extreme difficulties during the playthrough, although the map is certainly not easy. In its structure, Fountain of Doom reminded me of Limes Inferior: the same size, the same endless waves of enemy heroes, the same obstacles on the way to the enemy in the form of heavily guarded garrisons that need to be broken through as quickly as possible, and an overall scarcity of resources. The map has many elements that depend on chance: starting castles and heroes, artifacts, spells in cities. Even the castle and, consequently, part of the troops, except for archangels and wizards, as well as the final boss, are randomly generated. On the one hand, this makes each player's playthrough unique; on the other hand, it can either make it easier or more difficult.
I started with a Swamp hero, Gervulf, with the bonus artifact "Necklace of Swiftness." The nearest blue computer turned out to be an Inferno faction. Logistics is banned on the map, but specialists in logistics and heroes who have it as a starting skill still have this valuable skill here. After roughly assessing what is required of the player on this map, I almost immediately switched to Kirra as my main hero, also buying Monera. The task for the first two weeks is to ignore building up my own cities and gather the parts of the Cursed Armor in the center and quickly attack the blue player. He breeds the first two levels of creatures in the central castle. At the same time, he quickly builds up, so the sooner we take him down, the easier it will be for us later. After completely eliminating the blue player by the end of the second week (the joined storms at the very beginning helped a lot), I realized that for further progress, I would have to break through one of the garrisons guarded by megadragons. With this goal in mind, I bought Andra, and Kirra first outsmarted the garrison, removing snipers, wizards, and master djinns from it. At the same time, in the castles, mage guilds were being built at a rapid pace (first for Town Portal, then for Blindness, Berserk, Resurrection, and Prayer). I also placed devils in one of the computer's castles (they were already there in the central one).
Gradually, purple heroes began to appear in the center of the map. Their armies were quite small, but the heroes themselves, when they appeared, encountered an event that gave them experience and mana, as a result of which they were immediately leveled up to level 33. After eliminating such a hero, he can be immediately bought back in his tavern. I had a good laugh at the quality of the computer's leveling. For example, Pikedram learned various schools of magic but didn't learn Wisdom; other heroes didn't learn magic at all but filled their slots with items and training. It seems that the AI doesn't have any prioritization of secondary skills when leveling up. Also, at the beginning of the second month, a level 67 turquoise computer with a huge Inferno army and a Vulnerability Medal appeared. Andra, with Berserk, was able to defeat him and immediately after that broke through the dragon garrison. It turned out to be possible to do everything quickly, before the purple player started getting reinforcements in all the castles. Then, hundreds of gold dragons were killed to learn the Summon Ship spell, and archdevils were placed in the castle to, with the Necklace of Swiftness, outrun the hundred azure dragons that needed to be defeated in the dungeon. Andra found a scholar with Flight and then captured one of the pink player's castles, which can only be done by interrupting flight on an active castle cell, and also flew to the center of the map to the turquoise player's castle, catching him by surprise (there were 46 archdevils that hadn't been bought yet). Only the final pink boss remained, who, in my case, was in a Rampart. I had to deal with Rylando. The battle was without the Sphere of Vulnerability (it is surrendered before the castle through a quest), Rylando's combat stats are 50+ with our 10+, and the computer has a significant advantage in the army. But 73 archdevils, supported by mana-stealing imps, were able to win quite confidently. Victory on 2.3.6 with the Grail dug up (I barely found the digging point in the underground jungle).
After completing the game, I can say that for guaranteed success on this map, you need a hero with a specialty in intelligence and, preferably, all schools of magic, archdevils, artifacts for speed, and good spells in the cities. You can also set all flags to one type of castle (Inferno).