Marlo_Stanfield
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Map Title: Arlok
Author: Grigor Minchev
Downloaded: from the Heroesportal map catalog
I played through Minchev's new map and also got acquainted with the Bulgarian's creative style. The map turned out to be relatively simple, but interesting and engaging. I played it for several evenings without stopping.
Mission objective: find and unearth the Holy Grail; condition of defeat: lose the hero Arlok. He is our only hero at the start and is extremely unusual (see screenshot below). Sir Mullich is a level 0 specialist with a negative experience of 5,800,000 (!). His skills include advanced necromancy, plus artifacts for stats and the King of the Undead cloak. That is, he is not capable of acquiring any secondary skills naturally until he overcomes the huge experience deficit. At the same time, he is not critical to ghosts in battles, and he only has one spell in his spellbook – Titan's Thunder. In the taverns, we are offered a number of necromancer heroes, but here's the catch. In all of them, necromancy has been replaced with diplomacy, and necromancy itself is banned on the map. That is, it will not be possible to switch to another hero and summon liches. Jelu is also available for hire, and it makes sense to gradually develop him with a couple of "necro-diplomats."
The map has a very tight start in terms of resources and money, so incorrect actions will most likely lead to sad consequences. You need to quickly rush the AI while they are not strong and establish yourself at the expense of their cities. I went through the map counterclockwise: rampart – barbarians – rampart again – center and simultaneously the tower in the left corner. On the third month, I finished off the last ground flag (green), and it should be noted that by this time it had managed to gather some troops. But in general, in my opinion, the AI could have been significantly strengthened, since in the case of a quick clearing of the map according to a pre-planned plan, they surrender with minimal resistance. The brown AI predictably gathered the most troops in the dungeon. This is the only flag on the map that cannot be completely eliminated, as access to a number of castles is very difficult, and one dungeon is located in a completely inaccessible area for the player, and the AI periodically sends us guests through a portal from there.
It is also worth noting a couple of other unusual moments:
- there are practically no stat boosters on the map. With secondary heroes, you can visit several libraries of enlightenment, but for Arlok there are literally 2-3 boosters (!), that is, he is in a very sad state throughout the scenario;
- there are very few artifacts on the map. A number of artifacts are given to us at the start, but almost everything will have to be surrendered for quests during the game and run around in the mid-game completely naked;
- there are strong restrictions on magic. There is no city portal, flight, or dimension door on the map. It is not easy to get the call boat and walk on water. From the combat set, slow, blindness, resurrection, clone, forgetfulness, and force field are excluded until very late in the game. There is no berserk. In this regard, Arlok evoked associations with Dejavu Dreality. But there, at least, it was possible to apply slow from the cursed armor, and here I only got slow at the very end of the game, on the 7th month (!);
- the main feature is in the form of a sophisticated system of quests. This is the first such map in my practice, where defeating the AI is a smaller part of the required amount of work. And some of the difficulties in battles are precisely in solving the Pandora's boxes, ambushes in events, and not in the actual clashes with the AI. If you do not analyze the entire quest chain in advance in the editor (the prospector does not load saves for this map), then you can get stuck in Arlok for a very long time, considering that there is no city portal here, and the main hero, who opens the bulk of the quests, cannot be split and dismissed. I will not spoil too much, I will only say that if a quest asks you to hand over an artifact(s), then you can safely do it. The author does not resort to cheap tricks;
- I noticed that grayed-out ghosts are 30% less critical than non-grayed-out ones. In the example of liches, I thought that there was a connection to the amount of health, but no, the principle turns out to be different. You live, you learn in Heroes.
I finished the walkthrough on 7.2.4. The map ends with the need to dig up a randomly located Holy Grail in a huge square in the dungeon, and I had to work hard to find the digging point (I put a puzzle map in the screenshots, opened through nwcoracle, for clarity). Also, at the end of the map, I got an achievement: Arlok's experience on the 7th month exceeded the positive value, and finally, secondary skills acquired in quests, Pandora's boxes, and the witch's hut were pumped up, including necromancy becoming expert.
Overall, I liked the map. It seems that the source of new ideas in HoMM 3 is inexhaustible.
Author: Grigor Minchev
Downloaded: from the Heroesportal map catalog
I played through Minchev's new map and also got acquainted with the Bulgarian's creative style. The map turned out to be relatively simple, but interesting and engaging. I played it for several evenings without stopping.
Mission objective: find and unearth the Holy Grail; condition of defeat: lose the hero Arlok. He is our only hero at the start and is extremely unusual (see screenshot below). Sir Mullich is a level 0 specialist with a negative experience of 5,800,000 (!). His skills include advanced necromancy, plus artifacts for stats and the King of the Undead cloak. That is, he is not capable of acquiring any secondary skills naturally until he overcomes the huge experience deficit. At the same time, he is not critical to ghosts in battles, and he only has one spell in his spellbook – Titan's Thunder. In the taverns, we are offered a number of necromancer heroes, but here's the catch. In all of them, necromancy has been replaced with diplomacy, and necromancy itself is banned on the map. That is, it will not be possible to switch to another hero and summon liches. Jelu is also available for hire, and it makes sense to gradually develop him with a couple of "necro-diplomats."
The map has a very tight start in terms of resources and money, so incorrect actions will most likely lead to sad consequences. You need to quickly rush the AI while they are not strong and establish yourself at the expense of their cities. I went through the map counterclockwise: rampart – barbarians – rampart again – center and simultaneously the tower in the left corner. On the third month, I finished off the last ground flag (green), and it should be noted that by this time it had managed to gather some troops. But in general, in my opinion, the AI could have been significantly strengthened, since in the case of a quick clearing of the map according to a pre-planned plan, they surrender with minimal resistance. The brown AI predictably gathered the most troops in the dungeon. This is the only flag on the map that cannot be completely eliminated, as access to a number of castles is very difficult, and one dungeon is located in a completely inaccessible area for the player, and the AI periodically sends us guests through a portal from there.
It is also worth noting a couple of other unusual moments:
- there are practically no stat boosters on the map. With secondary heroes, you can visit several libraries of enlightenment, but for Arlok there are literally 2-3 boosters (!), that is, he is in a very sad state throughout the scenario;
- there are very few artifacts on the map. A number of artifacts are given to us at the start, but almost everything will have to be surrendered for quests during the game and run around in the mid-game completely naked;
- there are strong restrictions on magic. There is no city portal, flight, or dimension door on the map. It is not easy to get the call boat and walk on water. From the combat set, slow, blindness, resurrection, clone, forgetfulness, and force field are excluded until very late in the game. There is no berserk. In this regard, Arlok evoked associations with Dejavu Dreality. But there, at least, it was possible to apply slow from the cursed armor, and here I only got slow at the very end of the game, on the 7th month (!);
- the main feature is in the form of a sophisticated system of quests. This is the first such map in my practice, where defeating the AI is a smaller part of the required amount of work. And some of the difficulties in battles are precisely in solving the Pandora's boxes, ambushes in events, and not in the actual clashes with the AI. If you do not analyze the entire quest chain in advance in the editor (the prospector does not load saves for this map), then you can get stuck in Arlok for a very long time, considering that there is no city portal here, and the main hero, who opens the bulk of the quests, cannot be split and dismissed. I will not spoil too much, I will only say that if a quest asks you to hand over an artifact(s), then you can safely do it. The author does not resort to cheap tricks;
- I noticed that grayed-out ghosts are 30% less critical than non-grayed-out ones. In the example of liches, I thought that there was a connection to the amount of health, but no, the principle turns out to be different. You live, you learn in Heroes.
I finished the walkthrough on 7.2.4. The map ends with the need to dig up a randomly located Holy Grail in a huge square in the dungeon, and I had to work hard to find the digging point (I put a puzzle map in the screenshots, opened through nwcoracle, for clarity). Also, at the end of the map, I got an achievement: Arlok's experience on the 7th month exceeded the positive value, and finally, secondary skills acquired in quests, Pandora's boxes, and the witch's hut were pumped up, including necromancy becoming expert.
Overall, I liked the map. It seems that the source of new ideas in HoMM 3 is inexhaustible.