The Road Back

I replayed the map. I finished it in 103 days. I encountered a bug. I captured an Elven Castle and hired a hero there. (The main hero's turn ended, and he was not in the Castle). I moved him to the city rebuilding button, the city rebuilt, and I was given a loss. If you rebuild the city first and then hire a hero, everything works normally.

Where do the Elves come from, and why is it impossible to befriend them?

The Elves follow one path: they capture a gold mine, then a crystal mine. If left unchecked, they capture a mercury mine and attack the Castle. The first Elven hero is easily defeated, but then another arrives with a much larger army, and so on, until either Glenheim falls or the nearby Elven Castle is captured.

What can you suggest about the earthquake? What's wrong with it?

In terms of siege, it doesn't provide any advantages. The hero is pushed back on the scale – that's a negative. Destroying walls works against the player. Walls reduce ranged damage and knock out towers, primarily low-level creatures. Edward's archers are weak; they're not like Dugald. They are only effective with high-level creatures; otherwise, regeneration won't save them, and the hero's resurrection is not very good. Monks/Inquisitors shoot poorly; the presence of walls is not as significant for them. Angels can fly over fences, and cavalry can only pass through the gates. However, the defenders have free passage across the entire front. They have more units and can immediately attack with all their forces. In a normal AI mode, understanding its advantage in numbers, it tries to bring everyone out into the open, but the walls hinder this; as units pass through the gates, they spread out. This circumstance helps in better implementation of the hero's special ability.

The concept of resurrecting heroes was taken from the previous map, where there were almost no complaints about it, and it worked well.

It's a different map, different heroes – everything is different. People are not complaining about the concept itself, but about the frequency of the turquoise opponent's resurrection. In the previous map, the main hero was a mage and easily received mentorship, so auxiliary heroes were not used at the first level. The main offensive force was magic; each hero had a lot of it, and it was not a problem to restore it. Finally, the map itself had other details: the paths to the enemy cities did not go through their garrisons (at least one), so capturing them was much faster. Mines simply changed the flag; no guards appeared there. Here, the hero first receives machines, and mentorship is postponed indefinitely. The main striking force is the units in the army; almost everything is taken from the Castle by the main hero. So, the Castle is guarded by a second-level hero with peasants. The roads to the turquoise cities are protected by large garrisons, and there are no ways to bypass them. Having 3-4 heroes against one, the AI easily captures all the mines and external structures.

Do you have any suggestions for reworking the Dungeon?

At a minimum, don't resurrect demonic heroes with an army. I don't like the architecture of the Dungeon in the form of a three-way tube, but this depends on how long the war with the demons is expected to last.

I don't quite agree with the final boss: even though he loses morale, the troops cannot be controlled, and as soon as the vampire curse is removed, everything will return to normal.

There is some incorrect initial assumption here: the player will definitely use "Darkness." I posted my replay; the battle is won with moderate losses without a second school of magic. "Darkness" is convenient when a small army faces a huge one. On the map, you can gather a very large army. Even without training in the cities, I barely managed to buy all the units, and everything that brought in money was used. At the end, I sold a lot of artifacts and resources to upgrade the troops. Second, who will remove the vampirism? I don't need it. My troops with morale attack much more often, deal more damage, and cut down the enemy like chickens; why spoil it? Edward's special ability works even better on vampires.