Jules Winnfield
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Added after 8 hours 22 minutes
Map Jedy strikes back (Iron man edition)
General Impression I remember once reading a walkthrough review of this map by kolotok and thinking to myself: nooo, I'll never play such same hardcore stuff)). Time flows and everything changes; the time has come for this most interesting map. Of all the maps I've completed, which have already reached a quite decent number (about 15 Chinese RPG maps alone), this one took the most real-time, but it was absolutely worth it. The map is very demanding regarding tempo; hesitation on it is akin to death, so riding your "horse" in a relaxed manner is definitely not for this scenario. But besides that, I should note the huge number of difficult, exhausting, and diverse battles, which is actually what attracted me most.
Walkthrough Tips - Speedrun as much as possible, otherwise there's a high probability you won't complete the map. - Archmages and pegasi are important in almost every battle; also, imps are often needed for mana cycling—besides archdevils, these are the most critical units in the game, don't forget them.
- Since our main stack throughout the game is archdevils, don't forget about the terrain; it can often save you in difficult battles.
- Hypnosis, which is useless on most well-known maps, has significant importance here, as almost all enemies have lenses of inner vision or a medallion. Don't forget to use it by creating screens for your troops.
- Stat boosters are placed specifically in the most inconvenient way, so whenever possible, try to take stats that are more or less on your way; either ignore the others or postpone visiting them until later.
Pros As I wrote—a huge number of difficult and interesting battles. Playing without Intelligence in skills, late acquisition of Clone and Town Portal forced me to rack my brain during the walkthrough, but also provided great aesthetic pleasure from the decisions made—a kind of masochism). Gameplay via archdevils, no Arch+Clone for you, shooters for FF (hello to Paragon lovers).
Cons The possibility of getting free legions of Azure and Faerie dragons in month 2, as well as КВ, should be considered definite negatives of this map. I don't understand the author's logic; apparently, it's some kind of mockery of players. I decided not to take them and absolutely didn't regret it, because the whole essence of the walkthrough would have been lost for me. The possibility of freeing Boragus and Gretchen with a berserker, Azure dragons, and Rust Dragons I would categorize as conditional negatives compared to Marlo, because they must be freed quite early, and the enemy doesn't sleep and wants to do it themselves; but the difficulty also lies in the fact that before the prisons there is an event with very powerful guards at the start of month 3, which is practically impossible to break through even with Kreg due to a simple lack of mana. So I certainly wouldn't call this "free stuff."
About my walkthrough Out of 4 heroes to choose from, I took Kreg, simply because I got tired of Orrin appearing in almost every Chinese map; Tazar, contrary to the logic of most Chinese maps, won't win here, and Malekith will suffer for most of the map, although in the late game he is the most preferred option of all (he is the only one with Intelligence). For the starting artifact, I rolled an artifact for + morale, as well as "Quicksand" and "Anti-Magic" spells dropping in the Stronghold Mages Guild at 118-103-0; according to my plan, this was mandatory. With that, the selection of the starting save was finished, and I didn't need the "dancing with a tambourine" that kolotok had. But the funniest thing is that you can manage without any of this if you follow the path indicated in Marlo's walkthrough and don't fight Kirry. I wanted to go this way myself, but couldn't find a way to trick Kirry and run away from her after the castle at 54-52-0. For Kreg's skills: Logistics, Pathfinding, Water, Earth, Wisdom, Offense (mandatory skills); in the last 2 slots I took Tactics (came in handy many times) and Fire (expert Frenzy and Sacrifice helped out quite a few times). I passed on Leadership because there are many objects for increasing morale and luck on the map; I didn't take Archery either, as other skills were even less preferable. For Ione, I took Air (helped a lot in the battle against Gurnisson and breaking through event thieves).
Tasks at the start of the map: free the support as quickly as possible, capture the Necropolis, begin its development to get vampires and GM3, and also break through Gurnisson. Gurnisson was killed on day 115-116 by Ione in the field—a very random and nasty battle where I had to fish for critical morale; it took a lot of time and nerves, but it was worth it because this opens passages to the 6 devils and mana events that are critically necessary.
121 - breaking through event 1900 thieves by Ione with 1 Faerie dragon).
127 - entering a one-way portal and capturing the vital Stronghold at 108-103-0
132 - breaking through Crellion and Kirry. Kirry's 1000 hellspawn were broken by 10 vampires and ghosts. One of my longest battles; even with turbo animation from sod_sp it took a huge amount of time—I dread to imagine how long this would last on pure SoD without the HD mod and sod_sp (hello Nasos).
136 - capturing Inferno at 72-71-0, from which we go through gates into the underground for exploration and resource gathering.
From 137 begins a lull phase when we need to free our resource heroes as quickly as possible, get "Water Walking", "Restoration", "Sink Ship" spells with Kreg, a blindness scroll and handcuffs for breaking Fury, as well as capture external dwellings with devils and Inferno castles, since our main stack throughout the game is archdevils, as well as collecting quest gold and freeing Calid with literacy. We are given slightly more than a month to build up, and we need to do very much in this time, otherwise the first enemies will simply wipe us out. Among the difficult moments at this stage, I should note breaking through the Inferno guards at point 143-0 (barely made it on mana, saved by expert Sacrifice, otherwise I would have lost a certain number of archdevils, which are worth their weight in gold for us), and a large number of reloads to find the correct logistics for heroes. The Grail dug up at the start of month 2 was placed in Inferno, as the devil growth gave the maximum impact compared to other castles.
On day 315 enemies visit the green tent, and on 322 a mass invasion of our lands begins via one-way exits, so it is critically important to reach Yog through a series of heroes on the sandy peninsula—a quest hero whose killing grants "Town Portal". If you don't manage to kill him by 315, he leaves through the green guardian and is reinforced by titans from a hero in the neighboring zone, which is what Marlo encountered during his walkthrough. The battle immediately becomes much harder because there's simply nothing to control the titans with. Fortunately, I managed to kill him on 314 before the troops joined. Also an important point at this stage is obtaining 3kk quest gold and the Sword of Justice before the enemies take them. If these conditions aren't met, the walkthrough may drag on later.
315-42X The next most important moment is killing Thorgrim and Nella. Nella guards the Sphere of Vulnerability (a vital artifact without which completion is impossible). Thorgrim was killed on 322, Nella on 324. Two non-trivial battles, especially with Nella due to resistance (hello Jennifer). Then we gradually cut down the roaming heroes one by one—sphere, hypnosis, and terrain help if necessary—and also capture the surroundings with our "dummies" to whom I distributed Rust Dragons collected in large numbers from external dwellings. A particularly difficult battle was against Andro with 4.5k mana. I had to put him in a castle and drain all his mana using pegasi, ghosts, and imps. An extremely tedious battle. But other battles weren't easy either, as the enemy always had a large advantage in manpower and stats.
42X-5XX We move on to breaking static heroes, reaching level 88, and finishing by breaking the main bosses. By this point we have all key magic including Clone, which we can get in 2 ways—give Thunder of Titans to the guard or relearn it from Thorgrim. By the way, Thorgrim wasn't needed at all, although I did level him up to 88 just in case. Difficult battles were with Sandro (cast dispel for some unknown logic after looping), and a most difficult battle with Mutare—I had to spend half a day on this one battle alone until the tactic was found and everything fell into place. Lacus, who caused big problems for kolotok, was passed almost immediately; I managed to loop him into casting Haste at the moment we needed.
The map finale. Breaking the 3 main bosses started with Gundulla; for her, like Marlo, I picked terrain, but not the one he chose. I managed to find a spot accessible only to 1-hex units, then everything was elementary. The battle with Mephala on castle defense was conducted such that she didn't teleport golems until I drained all her mana down to 0. I caught a pattern of when she threw golems and when she didn't, and that's how the battle was won. And finally, the final battle with Gird. I put Gird in a castle; I won't reveal the details of the battle—let others struggle)). I broke all bosses with Kreg; neither Thorgrim nor anyone else was needed. I didn't swap Archangels for Titans; I saw no point and knew that even Gird, with his mega-damage from spells and fire shield, could be killed by archs, which is what was done. Victory on day 535. Titans were never needed, nor the 7k birds from the Seer. Rust Dragons were practically not needed except for one battle; Archangels were useful for only a couple of battles, as were Faerie dragons.
Summarizing, I can say that the map is of the highest quality—difficult, tempo-driven, but cool, and I definitely recommend it to all strong players. Considering the negatives, I'd give it 8-8.5 out of 10. Next, I plan to finally tackle the legendary xiedu, 6424 heroes, and the picturesque land.