kolotok
Auto-translated
Map: 生死百年第三版 (Century of Life and Death, 3rd Edition)
Author: Woxin
Walkthrough Review
Woxin is one of my most respected mapmakers; I've played most of his maps available online. I can say that the author approaches maps responsibly and with quality; I have almost no complaints or same-//shortcomings. All maps are dynamic, offering freedom of movement, constant "contact" with AI, and the need to plan management for both your own and the AI's movements. I definitely recommend them to all lovers of high-quality maps.
Therefore, it was a great pleasure to stumble upon a misplaced map that I hadn't completed yet. And I wasn't mistaken. I can give this map a 9-10 out of 10; I liked everything or almost everything, which is why I am doing a full review of it.
Attached are 3 versions of this map. 1 - normal, 2 - middle, 3 - BT (a very difficult version). Although the author writes that it's not exactly BT, it is still very hard. It's rare, but there is a 1-page text file for this map (also attached) where the author addresses the players. Those interested can put the text file into Google Translate.
Confirmation of the map's quality is the fact that, according to the author, it was tested on Chinese forums!
I chose the BT version of the map, the harder one.
I will try to describe the first few weeks in great detail, as tempo is important and some might be interested in comparing their walkthrough with mine. Plus, I replayed the first month several times because I either "under-collected" my army, went the wrong way, or had bad random luck with AI moves. Perhaps this review will save time.
The idea for the walkthrough is maximum tempo in the first 2 months: arrive at the AI's location as early as possible and take as many of its castles as you can so that it doesn't accumulate strength or upgrade forces in forts. Therefore, you need to hurry very much; the faster you are, the fewer losses in battles and the larger our army.
It is also interesting that as we progress, our armies change—meaning at first there is one army, then as we move forward, it changes "on the fly," so to speak.
Also extremely important on this map will be catching enemies either in a castle or in the field, but ensuring they don't escape at the end of the 1st month or beginning of the second, so that we can get their artifacts and not lose armies, as they love to cast strike magic on our stacks while escaping.
Ideally: whoever you run into, kill them immediately.
Start 111 - 117
As for choosing opponents, it's better to choose castles like: Titans, Inferno, human Castle. Other forces are of little use in the game. Although this is not strictly critical. As a starting bonus, I usually take an artifact, but here I took money to immediately buy some forces. Plus, at the start, I tried to get any hero from Rampart to have a stack of Wood Elves (I couldn't generate two at once). In the thread, someone shared the idea that it would be good to take an artilleryman like Gurnisson as a second hero and immediately raise his level for micro-battles, but I didn't get around to that idea. In general, the choice is yours.
At the start, as often happens, we have an unbuilt castle (spoiler—which can remain unbuilt until the end of the game, except perhaps for the treasury in the late game) and no army. You must immediately kill Alagar on day 1 near the castle; for this, we buy a starting army (definitely 2 or 3 available Wood Elves—for now, they are our "strike stack"), losing a couple of guys in battle (see screenshot), as Alagar will cast a few ice spells. On the same day, we take the sawmill and reach the prison with Enova on the last move, who immediately heads north to the Wood Elf external dwelling, takes it, and buys three more (now there are 5).
On the 2nd day, we free Mephala, who immediately takes a dwarf mine for money and experience. In principle, you can generate an average dwarf mine so that you can take it with existing forces and have enough money (a minimum one likely won't suffice).
In the following days, we buy out a hero in the castle with a starting army; Kir travels east to the respawn for money and elf growth.
By the end of the week, we do a "lap of honor" with heroes around the starting respawn, take unicorn external dwellings (and oh, I had to struggle with morale so as not to lose a single Wood Elf while taking them!) and buy them out. As for heroes, we try to immediately buy out logisticians—Gunnar and Dessa—as well as heroes with assets (elementalists). By the end of the week, Mephala should be standing in the north to break through the phoenixes, and the others—to visit various mills and deliver the army.
I have 6 heroes, 24 elves, 4 unicorns, 6 dendroids, 3 sentinel dendroids.
Upgrades and Skills
Not knowing what I would need later, I struggled for a long time with what to choose. But the author practically suggested it himself: along my entire route are huts with skills. So here is the advice: just take all the skills in the witch's huts along your path of movement; everything will be useful. Wisdom, attack, and fire are given immediately and should be taken right away. As starting skills, Mephala (who is our main for the whole game) has defense and pathfinding. The remaining 3 skills are obvious: water, logistics, earth. Theoretically, you could take intelligence instead of fire or attack, but in my opinion, what I wrote is better; mana can be doubled later, as there are places to do so. However, attack in the first 6 weeks is indispensable when you need to fight wall-to-wall, almost without magic.
For secondary heroes: give 2-3 of them air (will be needed for tricks at the end), but otherwise everyone should take logistics + pathfinding.
In general, it's not worth investing heavily in leveling up secondary heroes (except logisticians, of course), because as you kill enemy enemies, some well-leveled ones can be bought out.
121 – 127
Next, I thought about where to go. There were 2 options—stay at the respawn and then break through the gold dragons in the east, but that would take a long time since there are 5 of them and our army is weak.
It seemed more correct to me to break through the phoenixes in the north, visit the fort and upgrade troops, then kill the dragons and descend into the underground.
So, battle with phoenixes on 123—see screenshot, papist relief, Gunnar carries it with tactics (not Mephala). I don't remember the exact placement, but roughly like that.
Then Mephala, with 8 upgraded unicorns and 14 upgraded Wood Elves, losing a few guys, breaks into the underground.
And here it is critically important to do 2 things by 127: take the red dragon external dwelling, and in the dungeon village, build a portal and get another red dragon.
131 – 137
Again, it's important to buy a 3rd dragon from the external dwelling and a 4th from the portal, as a very difficult battle with angels awaits us (see screenshot), and without dragons, we won't handle it. I replayed this battle many times because of many "randoms": you need the angels not to have morale, plus ideally trigger blindness from unicorns—double is ideal. Some fodder is lost—dwarves, minotaurs, and 1 pegasus. The rest of the army—dragons, grands, Wood Elves, and unicorns—no losses. Immediately after this, Mephala rushes east in the underground, while all others form a chain, upgrade 4 red dragons to black ones, and this is now our main force.
We go to the end of the underground, where on 134 we free Müllich and take a boat with Mephala. This is also where the first contact occurs with Vistan the swamp-dweller, but he runs away from us, unwilling to fight. We keep Kir close to Mephala because there are no taverns ahead; she cannot be lost, and Kir will have to open the quest post for us.
In principle, this is where the "linear" walkthrough ends. Further, there are at least 3-4 routes (I tried all options by experience!):
- you can take the boat back to your starting respawn, break through the gold dragons there and take growth from Rampart,
- you can sail straight to the human Castle in the northwest to take it,
- you can land near the anti-magic garrison and take Rampart later,
- you can sail toward the swamp-dweller a bit further east.
Plus, there is VERY big random with AI moves: he can go in different directions, often differently, and this changes everything—both in terms of combat and logistics, and that our heroes cannot be lost until we reach a tavern, etc.
I chose the last option with the swamp-dweller. On 137, we land on his lands and take the swamp castle, accordingly getting growth for the new week. I liked this option best because there was an opportunity to capture 3 angels from "cans" slightly above the swamp-dweller's castle. In literally 1 week or even a couple of days, they would be taken by enemies. And 3 archangels in the army are both a strike stack and restoration, which we don't have yet!
Moreover, there is no point in rushing to the human Castle; archangels are built there, but they will only appear on 147.
141 – 147
Next, total random begins on the map and you can decide for yourself: how, where, in what sequence to go and which tasks to solve. The AI decides similarly, so you often have to save/load.
I chose the following: bought 2 hydras, took a "can" of 3, upgraded all that, and went west. Army and leveling on 143 see screenshot; picked up cows along the way.
On 147, I freed Catherine from prison, adding another 4 archangels to the army.
Here, the first blunder in the walkthrough was noticed (forgot to visit the "attack" hut in the underground!!!), and a second "blunder" occurred. In the human Castle on day 28, there is an event—the construction of archangels. Now, I captured this castle earlier, and for some reason, the archangels weren't built; the script didn't trigger! As a result, until the end of the map, I received no growth of archangels from this castle! Which is very bad, of course. Later I tried rolling back saves (honestly, 15-20 times) and replaying the week from 143 to 217; the archangels were built, but everything was VERY UNFORTUNATE—terrible in terms of killing enemy heroes and their routes. Therefore, I decided that killing enemies (more on this below) without losses, getting their artifacts, and their correct movement is more important now than growth "later"; I decided to continue without the archangel growth in castle 30-114-0. In general, it's a big mistake, but I decided to play like this.
While there are no enemies; all the losers have scattered north.
211 – 227
After visiting the stable in the castle on 211, Mephala and Kir immediately go west, where on 213 we cleverly position ourselves before neutrals (see screenshot), so that on 215 we can reach and take the swamp with all growth: 8 chaos hydras (+1 from external dwelling) and 23 cows (we likely won't be able to kill azure ones otherwise in the future).
On 216, we free Ivor with 55 snipers. And further—why I didn't replay and stayed without archangels—on day 217, I killed 4 enemy heroes (Luna, Roland, Clancy, Ignat), almost without losses, and none of them could escape, and I got 2 artifacts; this was very difficult to achieve! That is, if at the beginning of day 217 Mephala's stats were 8955 and only 1 artifact for knowledge, then on 221 it was 13-13-5-5. Plus no losses!
On 221, we take Flax with growth; there is a tavern there, and you can re-buy the well-leveled enemy Ignat (7-6-6-10 stats, after all!).
Here and beyond—it's important to catch and kill the AI so that he doesn't escape with artifacts. On 222, we put Mephala in a position and in a battle very difficult due to random, we kill the Dragon (see screenshot), almost without losses and getting all artifacts. This was very hard! Of course, my cows eat the azures, but Dragon is a terrible mage and can hit our snipers very hard with magic. In extreme cases, he casts magic and runs away. Therefore, it's very difficult to catch him, but I succeeded! Obtained artifacts: breastplate +4 attack and defense, ring +1 attack and defense, badge of courage, and several other artifacts!
We kill a couple more losers, take the spell power artifact, and on 224 we lure in Charna, another stronger opponent; it was also very hard to kill her so that she didn't escape (scorpidons helping with stun), see screenshot. Got a bunch of other artifacts, including the titan thunder helmet; now there is mana.
Bought out enemy Sylvia, Clancy, and others who could be bought.
On 226, Gunnar takes the second flax and kills the last losers on this respawn, and Mephala gets in a boat to sail north. There's no point staying at this respawn any longer; you need to go north—to learn magic.
231 – 237
232—another difficult fight where you have to "catch" Kir; succeeded, got the same-hat from AOTD.
Kir stayed in the sanctuary near the flaxes and the fortress with phoenixes and other small troops to take castles and constantly distract/aggro the AI.
And Mephala and the remaining logisticians go around the north, take external dwellings, mines, visit captured towers. In the first, we learn clone; now 7 archangels can restore even better. In the second tower—water walking. In the third—restoration.
Through manipulation, I managed to send the losers slightly ahead (Edric sailed with 1 fairy on a ship), while logisticians went on foot. On 243, Edric blocked the narrow path to the 3rd Cloudspear tower; they thought 1 fairy wouldn't take the castle and weren't stingy. My chain passed through and I captured the tower with growth of TEN titans. Strike stacks change again :) Later I did the same trick further south and got 10 unbought archangels in a castle. On narrow passages, you can also lure strong enemies onto your losers. Take note!
By 247, I traveled all over the north, learned all magic, and now you can choose where to go—and there are again several directions.
311 – 347
Next, the player can choose:
- return through the north to the flax castles and finish off the AI,
- try to break through Phoenixes in the north and descend to the underground,
- go straight southwest; there are many options.
On 314, I got the Cursed Armor (collected all artifacts from killed losers) and the game became easier: traveled around the western respawn, finished off heroes with artifacts, captured castles, etc.
On 327, I killed Saurug and received the legion statue.
On 337, Mutare Drake was killed and tea died.
Until the end of the third month, I accumulate strength, expand/clear territory, take stats.
411 – 447
The army is divided: archangels and titans travel with Mephala; devils, fairy dragons, swamp army—with logisticians. The third army of phoenixes and black dragons + ifrits burns the AI's losers with Armageddon.
421—yellow killed.
Soon pink heroes emerge from one-way paths: Galtran with legions etc. After tricks and killing Galtran, I managed to get the cloak of the undead king from him (practically cheating!). After ramping up the necromancer, you can mow down tens of thousands of liches on the map. By 447 there were 800. Without really using the liches, I first hid them far away and then sold them entirely. I continued the game with a normal army, as finishing the game with liches would have lost all interest.
By 447, I cleared almost all of the map's overworld. Losers periodically jump from teleports, but they are quickly caught. Control has been obtained over the entire overworld.
511 – 836
In general, the clearing stage can be done earlier, depending on how it goes for you.
To control the map as early as possible, you need to get town portal. This can only be done in the seer's hut in several places by reaching level 38 or 42. It's not hard to get Mephala to such a level; for this, after breaking through phoenixes in the north of the map, you can descend into the underground and break through 2411 fairy dragons. Theoretically, this can be done by Mephala with a mana reserve and sufficient numbers of archdevils or archangels and/or shooting stacks. Then you can also break through rusty dragons using archdevils and shooters with a tent.
After obtaining town portal and relearning it, map control becomes very easy. I did it slightly differently and took the long way—through the bottom of the underground via the waterway, so the game dragged on since I lost about a month and a half on this.
523—green killed.
621—obtained town portal.
625—Octvia was killed and bracers were obtained (oh how they were missed at the start of the game!).
In the underground you need to:
- break through neutral troops: azure legions are killed by vampires, I think even 500-600 are enough; fairy ones—killed by archdevils,
- visit all libraries,
- collect angel external dwellings, bears etc.,
- accumulate an army of dragons,
- visit all available tents.
What I couldn't do was get the speed boots and admiral's hat. Breaking through 4 thousand rusty ones is impossible. Even gathering 800-900 vampires and taking a cell where only 1 stack can hit us, the first stack of rusty dragons lowers our defense to 0, and the second stack kills in 1 hit. So I couldn't take that—perhaps the only object on the map.
There are no particular difficulties at this stage, although I will post some battle screenshots anyway.
On 643, you need to break through a garrison with impressive guards and get goodies in the form of artifacts, magic, etc.
Killed bosses:
721—Shiva + red tent.
723—Tazar, brown tent
724—Jeditt, a tedious battle. We have a great advantage in attack, but the enemy has impressive stacks and is a restoration specialist. I couldn't find the key to him for a long time until finally I pushed archangel and azure stacks "into the corners," applied all buffs + fire shield. Archangels made clones and gradually killed azures and sulfurs. I cast hypnosis on some mini-stack (blindness doesn't work) and restored. Almost all mana was spent. A memorable fight. Killing him gives a great bonus in the form of giants and titans.
732—Moner, not a very difficult battle; our army is sufficient by now.
Right there, without leaving the same spot, we learn dimensional gates and kill the previously unreachable brown (747) and pink (814).
817—dug up the grail and placed it in the castle for + morale to all troops. It cannot be placed in flax.
Then we do a series of tricks on the last boss; his army is just too unkillable. His gold dragons and phoenixes burn through archangels first, then titans, and finally the golds themselves. I was able to fight with the remaining army, see screenshot.
Final battle. Put artifacts on Angel Alliance and speed. While the enemy killed my phoenixes and azures, I cast prayer, earth protection etc. on devils, whom I hid behind a forcefield. Gave the AI slow. Then Nimus spent all mana restoring phoenixes, which were being killed by an archdevil. Then lowered defense with a destruction beam and gradually finished off the enemy. Not enough mana to restore all azures, but that's not scary, because after killing Nimus, I took the last purple castle 1 cell away and the game ended on 836.
Author: Woxin
Walkthrough Review
Woxin is one of my most respected mapmakers; I've played most of his maps available online. I can say that the author approaches maps responsibly and with quality; I have almost no complaints or same-//shortcomings. All maps are dynamic, offering freedom of movement, constant "contact" with AI, and the need to plan management for both your own and the AI's movements. I definitely recommend them to all lovers of high-quality maps.
Therefore, it was a great pleasure to stumble upon a misplaced map that I hadn't completed yet. And I wasn't mistaken. I can give this map a 9-10 out of 10; I liked everything or almost everything, which is why I am doing a full review of it.
Attached are 3 versions of this map. 1 - normal, 2 - middle, 3 - BT (a very difficult version). Although the author writes that it's not exactly BT, it is still very hard. It's rare, but there is a 1-page text file for this map (also attached) where the author addresses the players. Those interested can put the text file into Google Translate.
Confirmation of the map's quality is the fact that, according to the author, it was tested on Chinese forums!
I chose the BT version of the map, the harder one.
I will try to describe the first few weeks in great detail, as tempo is important and some might be interested in comparing their walkthrough with mine. Plus, I replayed the first month several times because I either "under-collected" my army, went the wrong way, or had bad random luck with AI moves. Perhaps this review will save time.
The idea for the walkthrough is maximum tempo in the first 2 months: arrive at the AI's location as early as possible and take as many of its castles as you can so that it doesn't accumulate strength or upgrade forces in forts. Therefore, you need to hurry very much; the faster you are, the fewer losses in battles and the larger our army.
It is also interesting that as we progress, our armies change—meaning at first there is one army, then as we move forward, it changes "on the fly," so to speak.
Also extremely important on this map will be catching enemies either in a castle or in the field, but ensuring they don't escape at the end of the 1st month or beginning of the second, so that we can get their artifacts and not lose armies, as they love to cast strike magic on our stacks while escaping.
Ideally: whoever you run into, kill them immediately.
Start 111 - 117
As for choosing opponents, it's better to choose castles like: Titans, Inferno, human Castle. Other forces are of little use in the game. Although this is not strictly critical. As a starting bonus, I usually take an artifact, but here I took money to immediately buy some forces. Plus, at the start, I tried to get any hero from Rampart to have a stack of Wood Elves (I couldn't generate two at once). In the thread, someone shared the idea that it would be good to take an artilleryman like Gurnisson as a second hero and immediately raise his level for micro-battles, but I didn't get around to that idea. In general, the choice is yours.
At the start, as often happens, we have an unbuilt castle (spoiler—which can remain unbuilt until the end of the game, except perhaps for the treasury in the late game) and no army. You must immediately kill Alagar on day 1 near the castle; for this, we buy a starting army (definitely 2 or 3 available Wood Elves—for now, they are our "strike stack"), losing a couple of guys in battle (see screenshot), as Alagar will cast a few ice spells. On the same day, we take the sawmill and reach the prison with Enova on the last move, who immediately heads north to the Wood Elf external dwelling, takes it, and buys three more (now there are 5).
On the 2nd day, we free Mephala, who immediately takes a dwarf mine for money and experience. In principle, you can generate an average dwarf mine so that you can take it with existing forces and have enough money (a minimum one likely won't suffice).
In the following days, we buy out a hero in the castle with a starting army; Kir travels east to the respawn for money and elf growth.
By the end of the week, we do a "lap of honor" with heroes around the starting respawn, take unicorn external dwellings (and oh, I had to struggle with morale so as not to lose a single Wood Elf while taking them!) and buy them out. As for heroes, we try to immediately buy out logisticians—Gunnar and Dessa—as well as heroes with assets (elementalists). By the end of the week, Mephala should be standing in the north to break through the phoenixes, and the others—to visit various mills and deliver the army.
I have 6 heroes, 24 elves, 4 unicorns, 6 dendroids, 3 sentinel dendroids.
Upgrades and Skills
Not knowing what I would need later, I struggled for a long time with what to choose. But the author practically suggested it himself: along my entire route are huts with skills. So here is the advice: just take all the skills in the witch's huts along your path of movement; everything will be useful. Wisdom, attack, and fire are given immediately and should be taken right away. As starting skills, Mephala (who is our main for the whole game) has defense and pathfinding. The remaining 3 skills are obvious: water, logistics, earth. Theoretically, you could take intelligence instead of fire or attack, but in my opinion, what I wrote is better; mana can be doubled later, as there are places to do so. However, attack in the first 6 weeks is indispensable when you need to fight wall-to-wall, almost without magic.
For secondary heroes: give 2-3 of them air (will be needed for tricks at the end), but otherwise everyone should take logistics + pathfinding.
In general, it's not worth investing heavily in leveling up secondary heroes (except logisticians, of course), because as you kill enemy enemies, some well-leveled ones can be bought out.
121 – 127
Next, I thought about where to go. There were 2 options—stay at the respawn and then break through the gold dragons in the east, but that would take a long time since there are 5 of them and our army is weak.
It seemed more correct to me to break through the phoenixes in the north, visit the fort and upgrade troops, then kill the dragons and descend into the underground.
So, battle with phoenixes on 123—see screenshot, papist relief, Gunnar carries it with tactics (not Mephala). I don't remember the exact placement, but roughly like that.
Then Mephala, with 8 upgraded unicorns and 14 upgraded Wood Elves, losing a few guys, breaks into the underground.
And here it is critically important to do 2 things by 127: take the red dragon external dwelling, and in the dungeon village, build a portal and get another red dragon.
131 – 137
Again, it's important to buy a 3rd dragon from the external dwelling and a 4th from the portal, as a very difficult battle with angels awaits us (see screenshot), and without dragons, we won't handle it. I replayed this battle many times because of many "randoms": you need the angels not to have morale, plus ideally trigger blindness from unicorns—double is ideal. Some fodder is lost—dwarves, minotaurs, and 1 pegasus. The rest of the army—dragons, grands, Wood Elves, and unicorns—no losses. Immediately after this, Mephala rushes east in the underground, while all others form a chain, upgrade 4 red dragons to black ones, and this is now our main force.
We go to the end of the underground, where on 134 we free Müllich and take a boat with Mephala. This is also where the first contact occurs with Vistan the swamp-dweller, but he runs away from us, unwilling to fight. We keep Kir close to Mephala because there are no taverns ahead; she cannot be lost, and Kir will have to open the quest post for us.
In principle, this is where the "linear" walkthrough ends. Further, there are at least 3-4 routes (I tried all options by experience!):
- you can take the boat back to your starting respawn, break through the gold dragons there and take growth from Rampart,
- you can sail straight to the human Castle in the northwest to take it,
- you can land near the anti-magic garrison and take Rampart later,
- you can sail toward the swamp-dweller a bit further east.
Plus, there is VERY big random with AI moves: he can go in different directions, often differently, and this changes everything—both in terms of combat and logistics, and that our heroes cannot be lost until we reach a tavern, etc.
I chose the last option with the swamp-dweller. On 137, we land on his lands and take the swamp castle, accordingly getting growth for the new week. I liked this option best because there was an opportunity to capture 3 angels from "cans" slightly above the swamp-dweller's castle. In literally 1 week or even a couple of days, they would be taken by enemies. And 3 archangels in the army are both a strike stack and restoration, which we don't have yet!
Moreover, there is no point in rushing to the human Castle; archangels are built there, but they will only appear on 147.
141 – 147
Next, total random begins on the map and you can decide for yourself: how, where, in what sequence to go and which tasks to solve. The AI decides similarly, so you often have to save/load.
I chose the following: bought 2 hydras, took a "can" of 3, upgraded all that, and went west. Army and leveling on 143 see screenshot; picked up cows along the way.
On 147, I freed Catherine from prison, adding another 4 archangels to the army.
Here, the first blunder in the walkthrough was noticed (forgot to visit the "attack" hut in the underground!!!), and a second "blunder" occurred. In the human Castle on day 28, there is an event—the construction of archangels. Now, I captured this castle earlier, and for some reason, the archangels weren't built; the script didn't trigger! As a result, until the end of the map, I received no growth of archangels from this castle! Which is very bad, of course. Later I tried rolling back saves (honestly, 15-20 times) and replaying the week from 143 to 217; the archangels were built, but everything was VERY UNFORTUNATE—terrible in terms of killing enemy heroes and their routes. Therefore, I decided that killing enemies (more on this below) without losses, getting their artifacts, and their correct movement is more important now than growth "later"; I decided to continue without the archangel growth in castle 30-114-0. In general, it's a big mistake, but I decided to play like this.
While there are no enemies; all the losers have scattered north.
211 – 227
After visiting the stable in the castle on 211, Mephala and Kir immediately go west, where on 213 we cleverly position ourselves before neutrals (see screenshot), so that on 215 we can reach and take the swamp with all growth: 8 chaos hydras (+1 from external dwelling) and 23 cows (we likely won't be able to kill azure ones otherwise in the future).
On 216, we free Ivor with 55 snipers. And further—why I didn't replay and stayed without archangels—on day 217, I killed 4 enemy heroes (Luna, Roland, Clancy, Ignat), almost without losses, and none of them could escape, and I got 2 artifacts; this was very difficult to achieve! That is, if at the beginning of day 217 Mephala's stats were 8955 and only 1 artifact for knowledge, then on 221 it was 13-13-5-5. Plus no losses!
On 221, we take Flax with growth; there is a tavern there, and you can re-buy the well-leveled enemy Ignat (7-6-6-10 stats, after all!).
Here and beyond—it's important to catch and kill the AI so that he doesn't escape with artifacts. On 222, we put Mephala in a position and in a battle very difficult due to random, we kill the Dragon (see screenshot), almost without losses and getting all artifacts. This was very hard! Of course, my cows eat the azures, but Dragon is a terrible mage and can hit our snipers very hard with magic. In extreme cases, he casts magic and runs away. Therefore, it's very difficult to catch him, but I succeeded! Obtained artifacts: breastplate +4 attack and defense, ring +1 attack and defense, badge of courage, and several other artifacts!
We kill a couple more losers, take the spell power artifact, and on 224 we lure in Charna, another stronger opponent; it was also very hard to kill her so that she didn't escape (scorpidons helping with stun), see screenshot. Got a bunch of other artifacts, including the titan thunder helmet; now there is mana.
Bought out enemy Sylvia, Clancy, and others who could be bought.
On 226, Gunnar takes the second flax and kills the last losers on this respawn, and Mephala gets in a boat to sail north. There's no point staying at this respawn any longer; you need to go north—to learn magic.
231 – 237
232—another difficult fight where you have to "catch" Kir; succeeded, got the same-hat from AOTD.
Kir stayed in the sanctuary near the flaxes and the fortress with phoenixes and other small troops to take castles and constantly distract/aggro the AI.
And Mephala and the remaining logisticians go around the north, take external dwellings, mines, visit captured towers. In the first, we learn clone; now 7 archangels can restore even better. In the second tower—water walking. In the third—restoration.
Through manipulation, I managed to send the losers slightly ahead (Edric sailed with 1 fairy on a ship), while logisticians went on foot. On 243, Edric blocked the narrow path to the 3rd Cloudspear tower; they thought 1 fairy wouldn't take the castle and weren't stingy. My chain passed through and I captured the tower with growth of TEN titans. Strike stacks change again :) Later I did the same trick further south and got 10 unbought archangels in a castle. On narrow passages, you can also lure strong enemies onto your losers. Take note!
By 247, I traveled all over the north, learned all magic, and now you can choose where to go—and there are again several directions.
311 – 347
Next, the player can choose:
- return through the north to the flax castles and finish off the AI,
- try to break through Phoenixes in the north and descend to the underground,
- go straight southwest; there are many options.
On 314, I got the Cursed Armor (collected all artifacts from killed losers) and the game became easier: traveled around the western respawn, finished off heroes with artifacts, captured castles, etc.
On 327, I killed Saurug and received the legion statue.
On 337, Mutare Drake was killed and tea died.
Until the end of the third month, I accumulate strength, expand/clear territory, take stats.
411 – 447
The army is divided: archangels and titans travel with Mephala; devils, fairy dragons, swamp army—with logisticians. The third army of phoenixes and black dragons + ifrits burns the AI's losers with Armageddon.
421—yellow killed.
Soon pink heroes emerge from one-way paths: Galtran with legions etc. After tricks and killing Galtran, I managed to get the cloak of the undead king from him (practically cheating!). After ramping up the necromancer, you can mow down tens of thousands of liches on the map. By 447 there were 800. Without really using the liches, I first hid them far away and then sold them entirely. I continued the game with a normal army, as finishing the game with liches would have lost all interest.
By 447, I cleared almost all of the map's overworld. Losers periodically jump from teleports, but they are quickly caught. Control has been obtained over the entire overworld.
511 – 836
In general, the clearing stage can be done earlier, depending on how it goes for you.
To control the map as early as possible, you need to get town portal. This can only be done in the seer's hut in several places by reaching level 38 or 42. It's not hard to get Mephala to such a level; for this, after breaking through phoenixes in the north of the map, you can descend into the underground and break through 2411 fairy dragons. Theoretically, this can be done by Mephala with a mana reserve and sufficient numbers of archdevils or archangels and/or shooting stacks. Then you can also break through rusty dragons using archdevils and shooters with a tent.
After obtaining town portal and relearning it, map control becomes very easy. I did it slightly differently and took the long way—through the bottom of the underground via the waterway, so the game dragged on since I lost about a month and a half on this.
523—green killed.
621—obtained town portal.
625—Octvia was killed and bracers were obtained (oh how they were missed at the start of the game!).
In the underground you need to:
- break through neutral troops: azure legions are killed by vampires, I think even 500-600 are enough; fairy ones—killed by archdevils,
- visit all libraries,
- collect angel external dwellings, bears etc.,
- accumulate an army of dragons,
- visit all available tents.
What I couldn't do was get the speed boots and admiral's hat. Breaking through 4 thousand rusty ones is impossible. Even gathering 800-900 vampires and taking a cell where only 1 stack can hit us, the first stack of rusty dragons lowers our defense to 0, and the second stack kills in 1 hit. So I couldn't take that—perhaps the only object on the map.
There are no particular difficulties at this stage, although I will post some battle screenshots anyway.
On 643, you need to break through a garrison with impressive guards and get goodies in the form of artifacts, magic, etc.
Killed bosses:
721—Shiva + red tent.
723—Tazar, brown tent
724—Jeditt, a tedious battle. We have a great advantage in attack, but the enemy has impressive stacks and is a restoration specialist. I couldn't find the key to him for a long time until finally I pushed archangel and azure stacks "into the corners," applied all buffs + fire shield. Archangels made clones and gradually killed azures and sulfurs. I cast hypnosis on some mini-stack (blindness doesn't work) and restored. Almost all mana was spent. A memorable fight. Killing him gives a great bonus in the form of giants and titans.
732—Moner, not a very difficult battle; our army is sufficient by now.
Right there, without leaving the same spot, we learn dimensional gates and kill the previously unreachable brown (747) and pink (814).
817—dug up the grail and placed it in the castle for + morale to all troops. It cannot be placed in flax.
Then we do a series of tricks on the last boss; his army is just too unkillable. His gold dragons and phoenixes burn through archangels first, then titans, and finally the golds themselves. I was able to fight with the remaining army, see screenshot.
Final battle. Put artifacts on Angel Alliance and speed. While the enemy killed my phoenixes and azures, I cast prayer, earth protection etc. on devils, whom I hid behind a forcefield. Gave the AI slow. Then Nimus spent all mana restoring phoenixes, which were being killed by an archdevil. Then lowered defense with a destruction beam and gradually finished off the enemy. Not enough mana to restore all azures, but that's not scary, because after killing Nimus, I took the last purple castle 1 cell away and the game ended on 836.
