We present to your attention a walkthrough of the 1st stage of the "Companionship" tournament by VDV_forever.
Tactics.
The obvious tactic on this map was to complete the second, winning objective, namely: capturing the "Predvarie" village in the minimum number of days. The second main goal, and actually the task (since the walkthrough was based on the number of days), was for one of the heroes to gain the maximum number of skills. It should be noted that I allowed for the possibility of improving the skill score by exactly 1 point, but, unfortunately, I didn't have time to check this task, so I did it after the results were summarized, when I shared first place with Alex_R (I hope he will also share his description with us).
Achieving this goal is possible by attacking the 1st dragon guarding "Predvarie" with the maximum number of homogeneous troops, which were a crowd of angry peasants with a small additional force serving to distract the dragons from the temptation to attack the peasants.
Strategy.
By carefully studying the map, it is easy to calculate that the maximum amount of XP a hero can gain is 4720 XP!
Obviously, even the fastest hero, boosted with boots, cannot visit/kill all the designated objects on the map in 2 days and gain the maximum amount of XP indicated above, i.e., gain level 5, which is 4500 XP, is only possible if the hero is leveled up on all the main bonuses (4720+(45-99)*-4500). You can only skip objects that, in total, will give less than 315 XP. Therefore, there was not much point in trying hard, since the maximum result was achieved.
Note - (45-90)* is the hero's experience at the start.
Leveling up the hero to level 4 (3200 XP) was not particularly difficult, since the total XP is significantly less than for level 5.
Mercury can also be collected in 2 days, obviously only 9, so one of the runners was specifically trained for this purpose.
Day 1
Hero 1, Arturius
Leaves all his initial troops in the starting castle "Dusk", except for 1 peasant (3 archers, 44 peasants).
Goes down and takes 700 gold.
In the "Dusk" castle, the 2nd hero, Dmitri, is hired, who also leaves his initial troops in the castle garrison (4 archers, 37 peasants). He takes 1 step to the left.
In the "Dusk" castle, the 3rd hero, Krodo, is hired, who adds 7 archers from the garrison to his initial troops (3 gargoyles, 8 centaurs). He takes 1 step diagonally southwest.
In the "Dusk" castle, the 4th hero, Barok, is hired with an initial army of 3 gargoyles and 10 centaurs. Barok, while in the castle, transfers all his troops to Krodo, except for 1 centaur.
Krodo with the army (7 archers, 7 gargoyles, 17 centaurs) attacks 21 archers who guard the boots. After the battle, Krodo's army has become a little smaller (6 archers, 5 gargoyles, 16 centaurs). Having taken the artifact BOOTS and the campfire (+600 gold, 6 ore), Krodo takes his last step to the left for today, where he spends the night (see the map).
Dmitri takes all the troops from Krodo, plus the priceless artifact BOOTS! He takes 1 step diagonally northeast, where he falls asleep (see the map).
Barok takes a step to the left, and Arturius gives him 1 gargoyle and takes 1 centaur, thereby making Barok a good runner. Arturius blesses him to collect the maximum amount of everyone's favorite mercury!
Barok falls asleep near the gargoyles (one step away from the attack), which guard the passage to the Dragon. He also falls asleep there.
In the "Dusk" castle, the 5th hero, Tyro (3 archers, 41 peasants) is hired.
Arturius, with his last step, takes all the peasants from Tyro, and in return blesses him for great deeds and gives him the BOOTS and 4 gargoyles + 1 centaur.
After the blessing and transfer, Arturius gets tired and takes a break (see the map).
Tyro, blessed by Arturius, defeats the goblins, losing 1 centaur. He has 4 gargoyles left, thereby making Tyro a very fast hero! He gains experience on the chest (+1000 experience), gaining +1 to defense, learns in the gazebo (+1000 experience), gaining +1 to attack, and falls asleep near the coast (see the map).
Day 1 ended with this.
Day 2
Arturius transfers all his troops to Tyro.
In the "Dusk" castle, the 6th hero, Hector (5 archers, 36 peasants) is hired, and +12 peasants are hired in the castle (with the remaining money). Having taken all the peasants from the garrison, Hector visits the House, where 34 more peasants join him. With all the troops, he returns to the "Dusk" castle, where he runs out of moves.
Dmitri takes all the troops from Hector, except for 1 peasant, and waits for Krodo.
Krodo, who ran past, receives all the troops from Hector, except for 1 peasant.
Krodo, in turn, transfers all the troops to Tyro.
Tyro with the final army:
16 centaurs;
4 gargoyles;
14 archers;
202 peasants.
Ruthlessly kills the gargoyles standing in the passage, losing precious troops (11 peasants, 1 centaur, 1 archer).
Having visited the fairy circle (to hit better with peasants: D), Tyro easily kills the purple Dragon, losing only gargoyles and archers.
Barok, meanwhile, seeing that the passage is clear, freely takes mercury in batches of +4, +5.
Tyro completes the mission, defeating the guard of the village, and thereby winning the first map (stage 1) of the scenario.
After taking "Predvarie", Tyro gains level 4 (+1 attack).
Thank you for your attention.
P.S. It should be noted that I did not strive to dig up heroes with the maximum number of initial troops.;)
P.S.S. Saves are attached.;)
Map of the respawn:
Saves:
Sincerely, VDV_forever
