Author:Season
Lord Rings Map
I'll add my two cents, as I also completed the map very recently. I would give it a 7 or 8 out of 10.
Despite not being the biggest fan of searching for solutions in overly convoluted battles, I liked the map nonetheless.
The author truly assists the player who maintains tempo. I got the impression that killing the next enemy or guard is ALWAYS possible with what we have at the moment, provided we know the "key." Perhaps the only exception is Thorgrim, whose army is a medley of titans, archdevils, dragons, phoenixes, etc. That is, you can't blind him, out-cast him, or hide in a safety point—nothing works because there are too many units and they are diverse (flyers, shooters, archdevils). Otherwise, after killing the next hero or guard, you can immediately move to the next objective without waiting.
Army comments. Throughout the game, I guaranteed use of wizards and harpies. In a number of battles, I also took phoenixes and archangels. Frequent guests in the army were mages and pegasi (for reducing/increasing magic costs), as well as manticores, wyverns, and bone dragons once they became available due to the special abilities of the aforementioned creatures. Very rarely in battles with neutrals, I took archdevils and a stack of scorpicorns (for example, while the main army was occupied on the other side of the map). I won't count one-off appearances of black dragons or azure dragons. The following armies WERE NEVER NEEDED: titans, bears, faerie dragons. Regarding casts, hypnosis was never (or once, I don't remember) needed, although the author surely provided for its use.
Resources and money can also be ignored. If you need cash at the start to slot in angels earlier and buy up immediately, then by week 3-4 everything is in abundance; in the second half of the map we have over 1.5 million and a ton of resources, but there's nothing to buy with them, nor anything needed.
Regarding tempo and comparing the walkthrough with Jules Winnfield
In the first week I fell behind not by much, but I captured the second castle + killed Sorsha only on 126. Jules Winnfield did well to take the castles before 121 and get growth from the second castle. The only question is how he split his army to hold defenses in two castles at once on 121?
Next, I didn't go underground, but instead scouted the second shore toward the stronghold with one hero, while the second jumped to the barbarian and killed him on 133 + took the stronghold and via an island (killing scorpicorns with another hero), jumped to Synke, and when she left the castle, killed her in the field on 141.
Adjit was killed on 143, Lorelei on 145, and Orrin was only freed on 145. I can already see that Jules Winnfield is ahead by almost a week, as he even freed Orrin on 134! Although we traveled the map roughly the same way.
Later in terms of timing, I started to overtake Jules Winnfield by about one or two weeks on average, but overall everything is similar, though there are variations. For instance, I managed to arrive and kill Fiona earlier while she was still in the castle! And I broke through the red dragon garrison (see screenshot) sooner, which took an incredibly long time given the number of retries.
I'll spill the beans: Season made several safety points where you can hide shooters or harpies and make use of them. He clearly marked them on the map as pits!!!! See the screenshot for where they are; all of them can be used to kill difficult AI. An example is below — battles with Malekith or Tamika.
The battle terrain is a real feature of this map. Therefore, feel free to look for the right spot for a battle with the AI, although there will be few such battles since up to 10 AI heroes will be moving across the map.
Individual battles.
Difficulties in battles may arise if we play slowly and simply have too little army. You can't "accumulate" it in castles; growth is too small, and trigger heroes are coming our way who must be fought right now—later it will be harder and worse. The faster and further you push, the quicker you get perks (+ 200 wizards in the army, for example), or kill an enemy and take Armageddon's Blade from them. If you just hoard forces, killing the AI becomes impossible. Therefore, do not be afraid to let the AI out and kill them almost immediately after they emerge. Ideally, the AI should not have learned any magic or bought any units; then it is much easier to kill. An exception is the hero near the blue tent on the fire respawn. There, conversely, it's desirable that he learns various level 1-2 spells against his anti-magic, otherwise winning the battle is unrealistic.
As an option, you can fortify the shores and lure the AI into a water trap. I only performed this trick with Thorgrim; it wasn't necessary for others. That is, Thorgrim is the only hero I didn't kill who died in a boat without castles.
I also wanted to lure Tamika into the water, but she didn't "buy" it, so I had to kill her in the field, see screenshot :) a cunning battle with a safety cell. We use oil, two of our scorpicorns blind two stacks of liches (relying on RNG), wizards shoot at the third stack of liches (RNG again, if we want morale and a second shot), and archangels with wait crash into and kill the third stack; harpies stand on the safety island to reach everyone. The mage and pegasus simply fly closer to the AI so that he reaches them and casts stone skin rather than something else. If you don't want to rely on RNG, you can just place a scorpicorn next to the liches and block their 1st shot.
In the second round, archangels also move to the safety island, and wizards + harpies kill the second stack of liches (you can use blessing if the wizards didn't cast in the first round, or prayer). If you're lucky with morale, you can hit twice. The AI liches are still immobile under manticore poison. And if they aren't immobile, our wizards can shoot with frenzy and guaranteed kill 1 stack of liches.
In the third round, if the wizards are still alive and haven't been reached, we shoot a third time, finish off all the liches, and then on the island we have archangels + harpies; we drain the AI's mana, use quicksand on black knights, restore wizards, place them on the safety island, and retreat with archangels. Tamika killed on 325.
I also killed Kilgor by attacking him in the castle; a long battle, low mana, but quite realistic.
Moandor was killed without much effort with 900 wizards and almost 1900 harpies.
But the battles with Gunnar and Malekith are certainly brutal. If you tempoed a bit more, theoretically both could be killed even before they emerge; it's possible—that's why the author gave us pit lords in such quantity. I was late by literally 3-4 days.
433 – an extremely difficult battle in terms of RNG with Gunnar. See screenshot. We attack Gunnar in the field, set maximum speed, anti-blind, and attack stats. The safety cell (they are nearby) cannot be used, because then Gunnar will split the shooter stacks and the battle cannot be won. Absolute same-luck RNG in the battle. We must definitely age the bottom stack and block it immediately. And the top stack should either be aged or definitely immobilized by a scorpicorn. Accordingly, wizards preferably cast either slow or blessing. We use frenzy and kill or almost kill the bottom stack of shooters. If lucky, there will be morale and wizards will shoot twice. Nagas kill the blocking dragons, but not all. In the second round, we again need to either age the second stack of archers with dragons or use frenzy/morale with wizards to shoot twice. Harpies should finish off or almost finish off the shooters. Meanwhile !!!! the AI nagas must not get morale :) As you can understand, catching such RNG is extremely and extremely difficult; maybe one try out of 30. Also, in the second round if the nagas get morale, you have to retry. In the 3rd round, immediately sacrifice the wizards to be killed by nagas so they catch up, while casting quicksand. Wizards are no longer needed in this fight for now and are very distracting. To any of their casts, the AI likes to use dispel magic and we die immediately since 2 stacks of nagas will catch us on the battlefield in a heartbeat. Therefore, in the 3rd round, as I said, wizards simply approach the nagas to be killed (you don't see that often in battle :), and cast quicksand. The AI puts slow on us, prayer on himself, kills the wizards and wants to catch us. So we cast sands over and over and fly away with harpies under slow; it's not hard. Under no circumstances do we cast anything other than restoration on ourselves—at best, healing. Then the AI will resurrect either nagas or shooters, or throw magic at us, but that doesn't matter; harpies are enough to endure all this. And only when the AI spends all his mana or has 4 mana left for dispel, then we restore 4-5 stacks and give any buff. The AI does dispel (mana is now 0), kills our ones, and we again — slow. Here, if the AI catches morale, the try might be lost! Again, do sands across the whole field, then restoration. That's the kind of fight!
437 – not a very difficult battle with Malekith if using the safety point. See screenshot. With phoenixes we block his liches (don't attack), and try to age magogs with bone dragons. If it works, then teleport immediately with wizards to the safety point where no one can catch us and kill the magog. If they don't age, give wizards frenzy and still kill the gogs, then in the 2nd round teleport to the safety point.
515 is also a tough battle with Tazar, again due to RNG. See screenshots of rounds 1 and 2. We need to successfully place phoenixes near faeries so that rusted ones fly there. Azure dragons target our ballista and archangels. And here the RNG begins. We need:
1) our phoenixes not to be frightened and fly where needed,
2) his rusted ones not to be frightened and burn our phoenixes (then in the 2nd round we can use the rust-burn on his faeries),
3) ideally for his faeries to be frightened and cast nothing,
4) our wizards not to be frightened and shoot, ideally — get morale and shoot twice at faeries.
5) in the second and subsequent rounds for our phoenixes not to be frightened and use the rust-burn on faeries.
6) in the 2nd and subsequent rounds, ideally for faeries to be frightened again, while our wizards shoot at faeries with frenzy, ideally — twice with morale.
If everything works out, faeries are killed and Tazar cannot make a clone of them. If a few remain, it's important that they don't randomly cast meteor shower on us (this kills azure dragons), or kill wizards with an arrow, ice bolt or fireball.
In short, also a tedious RNG battle, but then due to forcefield it's easy to drain all mana from Tazar and shoot him later.
526 – final battle, see screenshot of the army I used to win. I assume one can somehow place a 1-hex unit (not for nothing does Season suggest swapping 30 archangels for 30 angels!) next to cyclops so that the AI's own azure dragons burn it, but I didn't experiment and did it my way. In the battle, you need to age and block the cyclops, then kill them in the 2nd round with frenzy and morale. In the 3rd round, harpies and our azures hide behind the forcefield, and a long battle of attrition against AI mana and killing his azure dragons ensues. We lost all wizards in the battle, but it's the finale and we don't need them anymore!
A worthy map, although quite difficult, clearly above average level.
