Marlo_Stanfield
Auto-translated
Map Name: Abelia
Author: Grigor Minchev
Downloaded: from the maps4heroes map catalog
I've completed this map as well. Everything turned out to be not as scary as the editor preview suggested, although the map is certainly not easy and will simply grind an unprepared/slow/clumsy player into powder. The closest relatives to "Abelia" in terms of gameplay are "First Blood" and "25more next". The key requirement here is the need to maintain a high tempo and execute a pre-developed plan. Plus, playing with a swarm of heroes. It's one of those rare cases where the map isn't the easiest even with taverns available.
To outline it in general, the main difficulties you'll face during the game are as follows:
- Incredible poverty in terms of gold and resources throughout the entire walkthrough. There will only be enough for the absolute essentials, and there will be no adequate opportunity to buy out the army even after capturing most of the towns and mines, as there are few mines, and money-generating buildings are banned in towns (you get the standard +500 gold per day from one castle, except for the starting one, where you can plug in a capitol). Additionally, events and pandoras are scattered across the map that strip away all gold and all resources;
- Strong restrictions on access to spells, artifacts, and stat boosters, which are traditional for this author. There is no magic in the town guilds at all! The bulk of the artifacts will be held by the AI after they visit the dragon utopias at their respawns;
- Energetic AI. The main AI heroes, who are unavailable for us to hire, have almost all magic (except for Fly, Dimension Door, and Town Portal), with the most problematic point being the presence of Water Walking. Most of the AI are set by the author to Warrior mode; furthermore, the main heroes of these flags are logistics specialists;
- Confusing map topography and a complex quest system (though simpler than in "Arlok"). The quests revolving around the mark of courage, the rider's gloves, and 10 azure dragons initially put me in quite a stupor, but discovering a secret that is very unexpected for a 2008 map allowed me to put the puzzle together. As in "Arlok", I would advise dealing with the AI as much as possible first, and then unraveling the quests.
We start the game with Lord Haart and his necromancer reflection. Sir Mullich also stands locked up, waiting for the quest in front of him to be opened. Amusingly, the first global task is the same as in "First Blood". You need to sail away from the starting respawn. To do this, you must obtain the captain's hat and level up water magic. But here it is harder to do, as there are more conditions for completing the task. Points to worry about: choose a decent main (I took Tazar, although Orrin would have worked well here too), also choose a scholar (the best scholar in the game, as known, is Alamar), upgrade the scholar's literacy to expert and advance wisdom, then find the right moment to scour the tavern for heroes with useful starting spells (Gundula, Tant, Adela, etc.). Also, at the respawn, you need to eliminate the necro with minimal losses, and it's also desirable to take his town on day 8 so that we have a growth of horses considering his external dwellings. Another important point: quickly completing the quest with the pit lords and farming a hundred demons. This quest, for example, requires the player to build the only correct route for the necro on the first day, which is quite non-obvious. In general, the logistics at the respawn are calculated by the author down to the details. Proper execution of the plan allows you to sail away from the respawn by week 5.
After several heroes sail away, I strongly advise burying our and the enemy's shore. This will save a lot of trouble later. The next winning move: split the army into two parts and send the main with titans to the tower zone, and the second hero (the starting necro who leveled up necromancy) with terror knights and legions of skeletons farmed from fish through the whirlpool into the underground to the necromancers via the Inferno zone. Our key opponent on this map is the brown player. You need to cut off his oxygen as quickly as possible, as he has a monstrous titan growth (100+ per week!). The longer we delay, the more pitiful our situation will be. I reached him in the middle of the second month, and he had nearly a thousand titans. Luckily, he hadn't gathered them on one hero. Next, smoke out the remaining brown forces from the one-way path and block the exit. Our next target is the Inferno AI. By cooperating with our heroes in the underground, we can take him out quite simply. Then move to the center and break the ambush on the road to the barbarians and swamp-dwellers. The barbarians have a curious one-way path at the very center of the respawn. In my game, the guard didn't manage to break through it in time, but I can imagine how everything would go if I had dragged out the game and the AI rushed into it in a crowd.
After wiping out all available flags and blocking the brown player, only the tents and quests remained. As I wrote, understanding how to complete the quests with the azure dragons was difficult. I even thought about hoarding them for 10 or even 20 weeks at first, but no, that's a trick. In the final quest battles, having a force field would not have been superfluous, but it can only be obtained on this map by lucky chance: some enemy hero must turn out to be a trained scholar and relearn high-level spells from the map bosses. I pulled out Than, but his skills and my luck were only enough to get blindness, which is also quite a bit, of course. I even threw my Alamar into the tavern, but the AI never bought him. Therefore, I had to tank with titans against 4k azure dragons head-on. Tazar managed.
The map has a double victory condition. I decided to play it "by the book" and placed the grail in the starting town. Victory on 5.4.3.
Short summary: the map is cool. I will continue getting acquainted with Minchev's works.
Author: Grigor Minchev
Downloaded: from the maps4heroes map catalog
I've completed this map as well. Everything turned out to be not as scary as the editor preview suggested, although the map is certainly not easy and will simply grind an unprepared/slow/clumsy player into powder. The closest relatives to "Abelia" in terms of gameplay are "First Blood" and "25more next". The key requirement here is the need to maintain a high tempo and execute a pre-developed plan. Plus, playing with a swarm of heroes. It's one of those rare cases where the map isn't the easiest even with taverns available.
To outline it in general, the main difficulties you'll face during the game are as follows:
- Incredible poverty in terms of gold and resources throughout the entire walkthrough. There will only be enough for the absolute essentials, and there will be no adequate opportunity to buy out the army even after capturing most of the towns and mines, as there are few mines, and money-generating buildings are banned in towns (you get the standard +500 gold per day from one castle, except for the starting one, where you can plug in a capitol). Additionally, events and pandoras are scattered across the map that strip away all gold and all resources;
- Strong restrictions on access to spells, artifacts, and stat boosters, which are traditional for this author. There is no magic in the town guilds at all! The bulk of the artifacts will be held by the AI after they visit the dragon utopias at their respawns;
- Energetic AI. The main AI heroes, who are unavailable for us to hire, have almost all magic (except for Fly, Dimension Door, and Town Portal), with the most problematic point being the presence of Water Walking. Most of the AI are set by the author to Warrior mode; furthermore, the main heroes of these flags are logistics specialists;
- Confusing map topography and a complex quest system (though simpler than in "Arlok"). The quests revolving around the mark of courage, the rider's gloves, and 10 azure dragons initially put me in quite a stupor, but discovering a secret that is very unexpected for a 2008 map allowed me to put the puzzle together. As in "Arlok", I would advise dealing with the AI as much as possible first, and then unraveling the quests.
We start the game with Lord Haart and his necromancer reflection. Sir Mullich also stands locked up, waiting for the quest in front of him to be opened. Amusingly, the first global task is the same as in "First Blood". You need to sail away from the starting respawn. To do this, you must obtain the captain's hat and level up water magic. But here it is harder to do, as there are more conditions for completing the task. Points to worry about: choose a decent main (I took Tazar, although Orrin would have worked well here too), also choose a scholar (the best scholar in the game, as known, is Alamar), upgrade the scholar's literacy to expert and advance wisdom, then find the right moment to scour the tavern for heroes with useful starting spells (Gundula, Tant, Adela, etc.). Also, at the respawn, you need to eliminate the necro with minimal losses, and it's also desirable to take his town on day 8 so that we have a growth of horses considering his external dwellings. Another important point: quickly completing the quest with the pit lords and farming a hundred demons. This quest, for example, requires the player to build the only correct route for the necro on the first day, which is quite non-obvious. In general, the logistics at the respawn are calculated by the author down to the details. Proper execution of the plan allows you to sail away from the respawn by week 5.
After several heroes sail away, I strongly advise burying our and the enemy's shore. This will save a lot of trouble later. The next winning move: split the army into two parts and send the main with titans to the tower zone, and the second hero (the starting necro who leveled up necromancy) with terror knights and legions of skeletons farmed from fish through the whirlpool into the underground to the necromancers via the Inferno zone. Our key opponent on this map is the brown player. You need to cut off his oxygen as quickly as possible, as he has a monstrous titan growth (100+ per week!). The longer we delay, the more pitiful our situation will be. I reached him in the middle of the second month, and he had nearly a thousand titans. Luckily, he hadn't gathered them on one hero. Next, smoke out the remaining brown forces from the one-way path and block the exit. Our next target is the Inferno AI. By cooperating with our heroes in the underground, we can take him out quite simply. Then move to the center and break the ambush on the road to the barbarians and swamp-dwellers. The barbarians have a curious one-way path at the very center of the respawn. In my game, the guard didn't manage to break through it in time, but I can imagine how everything would go if I had dragged out the game and the AI rushed into it in a crowd.
After wiping out all available flags and blocking the brown player, only the tents and quests remained. As I wrote, understanding how to complete the quests with the azure dragons was difficult. I even thought about hoarding them for 10 or even 20 weeks at first, but no, that's a trick. In the final quest battles, having a force field would not have been superfluous, but it can only be obtained on this map by lucky chance: some enemy hero must turn out to be a trained scholar and relearn high-level spells from the map bosses. I pulled out Than, but his skills and my luck were only enough to get blindness, which is also quite a bit, of course. I even threw my Alamar into the tavern, but the AI never bought him. Therefore, I had to tank with titans against 4k azure dragons head-on. Tazar managed.
The map has a double victory condition. I decided to play it "by the book" and placed the grail in the starting town. Victory on 5.4.3.
Short summary: the map is cool. I will continue getting acquainted with Minchev's works.