Walkthroughs for custom maps.

By the way, if anyone is interested in randomness in HotA. It might also work in SoD with HD+, I haven't checked. Recently, I also completed a map in HotA - Ville'de'Porte. It's an RPG map with small battles at the beginning and large ones towards the end (well, there's also one big battle in the middle). In my opinion, the most challenging battles are clearing 2 garrisons in the underground with a single Asp, against Elementals and Necro troops. The large battles are much faster; the final boss was almost defeated on auto-battle, thanks to 3 casts of Armageddon dealing 4k damage each, although we don't have Anti-Magic, but we have a lot of Asps that can withstand that much damage for one or two rounds, which can't be said about the Companion. At the end of the map, there is a certain freedom of action because you are given another hero, and you can choose who to attack/defend against. I completed the final battle with Manfred, due to his Fire Magic expertise. Personally, I enjoyed the initial battles the most, which need to be fought with Pikemen and Archers. You can lose as many Pikemen as you want, but not Archers. It was interesting to try to complete it with minimal losses. We have the "Spirit of Despair," but it's more beneficial to remove it and rely on the HotA randomness, which can also be countered to a certain extent. Battle with Kyra. The main initial problem is to eliminate both stacks of Archers as quickly as possible and lure the entire enemy army to a single unit. With a successful setup, we get a critical morale boost for the lower stack of Pikemen, who need one more turn to close the gap in the Archers' defense. Meanwhile, the large stack of Pikemen should be positioned so as not to aggro the Naga; the main rule is that the Naga will aggro if it realizes it can reach the large stack in 2 rounds; if not, it will go for another target. This target is 1 Pikeman, who lures all the enemy troops, waits, and after receiving a Haste spell, runs away. The next problem is to quickly kill the Gargoyle stack so that the Pikeman doesn't die prematurely. Here, again, morale comes into play - you need to cast Haste on the Pikeman, and do it specifically on the turn of the Archers; otherwise, there will be no morale. We cast the spell, get the morale boost, and shoot twice. In the end, the remaining Gargoyle dies from the counterattack of 1 Pikeman. The Naga kills the Pikeman, but he has fulfilled his task. The enemy troops are getting closer; we shoot down the stack of Iron Golems. Now, the large stack of Pikemen takes over the role of the lure; the task is to draw the Naga and have time to shoot down the Golems. The second task is completed - the remaining Golem cannot break through our defense. The Pikemen run upwards, escaping from the Nagas; the Archers receive a luck boost and finish off the Naga on the last step. Battle with Nagas. The large stack of Pikemen is placed in the middle, so both stacks of Nagas will not reach us in the second round. It turns out that morale can be obtained if you start shooting in the first round, which we do. Then, it's just a matter of technique. Battle with Iron Golems. Another quite instructive battle. The main problem, as in the battle with Kyra, is to eliminate the Archers and distract the enemy with a lure stack. However, there are not many Golems here, so they start aggroing on single units instead of the large stack, which means we need to divide them more evenly. The covering stacks are 7-7-5-6, and the distracting stack is nine. Then, everything is simple - we run back and forth and shoot. You can see that at some point, the weakened Golems realize that the nine is no longer a match, so they start aggroing on the lower five. One such stack reaches and attacks; we stand in defense and survive with 1 HP. The remaining battles on the map are fought with one unit, with the exception of the large battles, of which there are very few.