kolotok
Auto-translated
Map Name: Audaciousness
Author: Grigor Minchev
Link: http://en.heroesportal.net/maps/view/533 or on https://www.maps4heroes.com/ it's also available
Anyone familiar with the Bulgarian mapmaker Grigor Minchev knows this author's style. Usually, the maps are not simple; you have to push yourself to win.
About 2 years ago, I tried to complete the Audaciousness map; I explored it in detail but later abandoned it because I saw a ban by the author on Wisdom and Earth skills in the editor, plus a difficult start with guards consisting of own same-faction dragons, without money or an army.
Now I decided to try again.
Not his best work; I give the map a 5-6 out of 10, although the start deserves attention.
I assume it was designed for an alliance walkthrough, i.e., 2 people against computers. The map is a mirror; the top and bottom of the map are identical in terms of objects, castles, etc. Therefore, reaching the "closed-off" computer at the end of the map—who got stuck in early development, didn't take Dragon Utopia, and failed to break through some creatures (while we had already cleared the top and bottom of the map)—is a sad sight.
Choosing who and what to play
We can start playing for the Rampart village with Grindan and get Enova at the end with 20 gold dragons. Or choose any castle starting with Müllich and get a hero with the Logistics skill and 20 archdevils at the end.
Obviously, it is definitely better to take Müllich; +2 creature speed is power. After learning Armageddon, one ifrit can kill up to 7 own same-faction dragons—the initial guards at the respawn of some objects. There is no use in Grindan; he lacks Earth initially. Plus, the bonus of 20 archdevils can be combined with Inferno castles, but gold dragons cannot; they only get in the way.
Regarding the choice of starting castle, I dismissed Tower, Flask, and other castles. I decided not to take the human Castle because archangels wouldn't make a difference—there are too few of them, and they wouldn't be useful anywhere on the map later. Dungeon is questionable: there are no mana multipliers on the map, nor the ability to buy artifacts. As a result of the struggle between Inferno (and 85% of the castles on the map are indeed Inferno!), I ultimately took Rampart. Simply because at the start of the map, the army from Pandora's box is statically given as Rampart, which will combine the starting army + the army from Pandora's box. A huge plus will also be the 10% bonus from the treasury. In literally a couple of weeks in the 2nd month, I accumulated up to 1 million money; then there was enough money for creatures.
Therefore, I took Rampart and played with Müllich, maining him. Although in tests I tried maining both Mephala and Elleshar—it can be done, but there is no point: it's hard to break through the giants at the initial respawn, and their abilities aren't particularly needed; so Müllich is the best option.
Conditionally, the map can be divided into 3 stages:
1) gearing up at the initial respawn
2) capturing all territory of your overworld / underworld
3) breaking through to the other side of the map and finishing off the opponent.
1. Initial respawn
The most interesting part of the game. Essentially, one could make an S or M map in the form of an initial respawn for some walkthrough duration; that would be a better idea.
Müllich starts with negative experience -23600! As battles are fought, his experience is added, but skills are not granted. Also, you cannot see his skill tree until you gain enough experience.
As an initial bonus, I took crystals and on the very 1st day opened a quest pillar, beat wyverns, and then took Pandora's box, for which I was given a Rampart army that combined with the starting dwarves + given 3 ifrits, flies, and 7 wyverns; now we have a start.
Then I go straight north, where I need to open the pillar by day 117. I took it on 115 and immediately went down to the crystal mine, bought the second hero Elleshar for acceleration, help in gathering resources, and possible gearing up.
122 – took wood mines, crystal mine; 127 – wood and stone mines.
From around the 2nd week, Müllich travels with more than a hundred centaurs, wyverns, and several ifrits; all guards are broken through almost without losses.
On the 3rd week, we clear clues with Müllich and collect a stack of wyverns. Müllich enters positive experience, experts Fire, raises stats; from quests, we get artifacts for Knowledge and own same-faction spells.
And on 146, I break through the giants—the first difficult battle. You need to block titans with flies and place the fire wall correctly so that the titans burn. In the second round, we slow the main stack of 116 giants, lose some units, and wyverns kill all small stacks. Then we place the fire wall as shown in the picture, or on the right, and the giants are burned back and forth for 330 damage. We finish off the remaining with wyverns. An interesting battle, although not difficult.
As a reward, we get Wisdom and Earth for Müllich. He is the only hero we have who knows Earth.
After that, with ifrits at speed 15, we burn own same-faction dragons with Armageddon, take Dragon Utopia of 20 archdevils, leave the respawn, and on 145, we take the first Inferno castle.
Why I described everything so detailed: the author very precisely calculated the amount of experience for a hero with negative experience, resources are very precisely calculated, and for everything to go like clockwork, you need to calculate very well and try to make sure there is enough for everything: purchases, quests.
I really liked the start of the map, especially the task of taking two Pandoras—one gives resources, the second takes them away + takes mana. You can save a lot of money if you plan everything correctly and spend on the quest pillar. In general, the start is 9-10 out of 10, great.
2. Capturing the entire overworld.
On the 2nd week, the computer hasn't geared up yet, and if you end the day behind obstacles, its first 5-7 castles can be captured with all their growth.
From 145 (capture of the 1st Inferno) to 211 inclusive—i.e., in 4 days via fast roads—another 5 Inferno castles and 2 swamps were captured, and the pink player was killed; all this was done without the trick of dismissing / hiring heroes.
Essentially, such a walkthrough is like an online game where you capture the opponent's castles in a chain. In just 1 week, by 217, ALL castles on our half of the map were captured, and purchased and upgraded wyverns with accelerators (Dessa, Gunnar, Kir) went northwest to clear Dragon Utopia and collect money.
The computers offered no resistance at all; their stats are initial. Therefore, this part of the walkthrough has no interest.
Except for trips by the main hero to tents at the ends of the map—some kind of entertainment. On 322, to open the black tent, you need to fight Alamar with wild magic stats, who knows Chain Lightning, Fireball, and Resurrection. Alamar has 700 mana; we have only 290, so hiding archdevils behind a forcefield under antimagic won't work. I had to beat him on morale, fire Armageddon, place a forcefield on the dead (so he wouldn't raise forces), until finally Alamar fled, having killed 29 archdevils out of 152. It is probably impossible to win honestly in battle; you need to make him flee. Or as an option, release the hero and open the tent later, plus he might learn something more "gentle" than a Fireball on half a stack.
And the stage ends on 326 by breaking through neutrals in a box on dead land. We use slow and lose single units + a couple of magogs with archdevils.
3. Expansion to the other half of the map
The easiest part. Computers with growth went northwest for Dragon Utopia; castles surrender almost without a fight. Everything is also captured—managed to take everything from 327 to about 344. Then red Enova died in a week without castles on 411. So, the map was completed in 3 months.
I won't criticize it too much, but it looks very much like Minchev made it "for fun" rather than as usual. I.e., with the possibility to play without stress in an alliance, although completing the first three weeks is difficult for an unprepared person. Here is a comment under the map on heroeportal:
"Played with a friend. For convenience, I combined red and blue into an alliance. But due to 0 resources, we couldn't even leave the start locations. Is this map impossible or are we such noobs?" :D
In short, an extremely interesting start for a map is played out in 1 month, your half of the map is captured in blitz mode in 1.5 months, and the second half in 2 weeks. Rating – 5-6 points. Almost no difficult battles, heroes do not use their specializations; memorable battles can be counted on one hand.
Author: Grigor Minchev
Link: http://en.heroesportal.net/maps/view/533 or on https://www.maps4heroes.com/ it's also available
Anyone familiar with the Bulgarian mapmaker Grigor Minchev knows this author's style. Usually, the maps are not simple; you have to push yourself to win.
About 2 years ago, I tried to complete the Audaciousness map; I explored it in detail but later abandoned it because I saw a ban by the author on Wisdom and Earth skills in the editor, plus a difficult start with guards consisting of own same-faction dragons, without money or an army.
Now I decided to try again.
Not his best work; I give the map a 5-6 out of 10, although the start deserves attention.
I assume it was designed for an alliance walkthrough, i.e., 2 people against computers. The map is a mirror; the top and bottom of the map are identical in terms of objects, castles, etc. Therefore, reaching the "closed-off" computer at the end of the map—who got stuck in early development, didn't take Dragon Utopia, and failed to break through some creatures (while we had already cleared the top and bottom of the map)—is a sad sight.
Choosing who and what to play
We can start playing for the Rampart village with Grindan and get Enova at the end with 20 gold dragons. Or choose any castle starting with Müllich and get a hero with the Logistics skill and 20 archdevils at the end.
Obviously, it is definitely better to take Müllich; +2 creature speed is power. After learning Armageddon, one ifrit can kill up to 7 own same-faction dragons—the initial guards at the respawn of some objects. There is no use in Grindan; he lacks Earth initially. Plus, the bonus of 20 archdevils can be combined with Inferno castles, but gold dragons cannot; they only get in the way.
Regarding the choice of starting castle, I dismissed Tower, Flask, and other castles. I decided not to take the human Castle because archangels wouldn't make a difference—there are too few of them, and they wouldn't be useful anywhere on the map later. Dungeon is questionable: there are no mana multipliers on the map, nor the ability to buy artifacts. As a result of the struggle between Inferno (and 85% of the castles on the map are indeed Inferno!), I ultimately took Rampart. Simply because at the start of the map, the army from Pandora's box is statically given as Rampart, which will combine the starting army + the army from Pandora's box. A huge plus will also be the 10% bonus from the treasury. In literally a couple of weeks in the 2nd month, I accumulated up to 1 million money; then there was enough money for creatures.
Therefore, I took Rampart and played with Müllich, maining him. Although in tests I tried maining both Mephala and Elleshar—it can be done, but there is no point: it's hard to break through the giants at the initial respawn, and their abilities aren't particularly needed; so Müllich is the best option.
Conditionally, the map can be divided into 3 stages:
1) gearing up at the initial respawn
2) capturing all territory of your overworld / underworld
3) breaking through to the other side of the map and finishing off the opponent.
1. Initial respawn
The most interesting part of the game. Essentially, one could make an S or M map in the form of an initial respawn for some walkthrough duration; that would be a better idea.
Müllich starts with negative experience -23600! As battles are fought, his experience is added, but skills are not granted. Also, you cannot see his skill tree until you gain enough experience.
As an initial bonus, I took crystals and on the very 1st day opened a quest pillar, beat wyverns, and then took Pandora's box, for which I was given a Rampart army that combined with the starting dwarves + given 3 ifrits, flies, and 7 wyverns; now we have a start.
Then I go straight north, where I need to open the pillar by day 117. I took it on 115 and immediately went down to the crystal mine, bought the second hero Elleshar for acceleration, help in gathering resources, and possible gearing up.
122 – took wood mines, crystal mine; 127 – wood and stone mines.
From around the 2nd week, Müllich travels with more than a hundred centaurs, wyverns, and several ifrits; all guards are broken through almost without losses.
On the 3rd week, we clear clues with Müllich and collect a stack of wyverns. Müllich enters positive experience, experts Fire, raises stats; from quests, we get artifacts for Knowledge and own same-faction spells.
And on 146, I break through the giants—the first difficult battle. You need to block titans with flies and place the fire wall correctly so that the titans burn. In the second round, we slow the main stack of 116 giants, lose some units, and wyverns kill all small stacks. Then we place the fire wall as shown in the picture, or on the right, and the giants are burned back and forth for 330 damage. We finish off the remaining with wyverns. An interesting battle, although not difficult.
As a reward, we get Wisdom and Earth for Müllich. He is the only hero we have who knows Earth.
After that, with ifrits at speed 15, we burn own same-faction dragons with Armageddon, take Dragon Utopia of 20 archdevils, leave the respawn, and on 145, we take the first Inferno castle.
Why I described everything so detailed: the author very precisely calculated the amount of experience for a hero with negative experience, resources are very precisely calculated, and for everything to go like clockwork, you need to calculate very well and try to make sure there is enough for everything: purchases, quests.
I really liked the start of the map, especially the task of taking two Pandoras—one gives resources, the second takes them away + takes mana. You can save a lot of money if you plan everything correctly and spend on the quest pillar. In general, the start is 9-10 out of 10, great.
2. Capturing the entire overworld.
On the 2nd week, the computer hasn't geared up yet, and if you end the day behind obstacles, its first 5-7 castles can be captured with all their growth.
From 145 (capture of the 1st Inferno) to 211 inclusive—i.e., in 4 days via fast roads—another 5 Inferno castles and 2 swamps were captured, and the pink player was killed; all this was done without the trick of dismissing / hiring heroes.
Essentially, such a walkthrough is like an online game where you capture the opponent's castles in a chain. In just 1 week, by 217, ALL castles on our half of the map were captured, and purchased and upgraded wyverns with accelerators (Dessa, Gunnar, Kir) went northwest to clear Dragon Utopia and collect money.
The computers offered no resistance at all; their stats are initial. Therefore, this part of the walkthrough has no interest.
Except for trips by the main hero to tents at the ends of the map—some kind of entertainment. On 322, to open the black tent, you need to fight Alamar with wild magic stats, who knows Chain Lightning, Fireball, and Resurrection. Alamar has 700 mana; we have only 290, so hiding archdevils behind a forcefield under antimagic won't work. I had to beat him on morale, fire Armageddon, place a forcefield on the dead (so he wouldn't raise forces), until finally Alamar fled, having killed 29 archdevils out of 152. It is probably impossible to win honestly in battle; you need to make him flee. Or as an option, release the hero and open the tent later, plus he might learn something more "gentle" than a Fireball on half a stack.
And the stage ends on 326 by breaking through neutrals in a box on dead land. We use slow and lose single units + a couple of magogs with archdevils.
3. Expansion to the other half of the map
The easiest part. Computers with growth went northwest for Dragon Utopia; castles surrender almost without a fight. Everything is also captured—managed to take everything from 327 to about 344. Then red Enova died in a week without castles on 411. So, the map was completed in 3 months.
I won't criticize it too much, but it looks very much like Minchev made it "for fun" rather than as usual. I.e., with the possibility to play without stress in an alliance, although completing the first three weeks is difficult for an unprepared person. Here is a comment under the map on heroeportal:
"Played with a friend. For convenience, I combined red and blue into an alliance. But due to 0 resources, we couldn't even leave the start locations. Is this map impossible or are we such noobs?" :D
In short, an extremely interesting start for a map is played out in 1 month, your half of the map is captured in blitz mode in 1.5 months, and the second half in 2 weeks. Rating – 5-6 points. Almost no difficult battles, heroes do not use their specializations; memorable battles can be counted on one hand.
