Walkthroughs for custom maps.

I just finished Paragon 2.0, and while the impressions are still fresh, I want to share them.

Why won't it go under the spoiler tag? No matter how hard I try..
Anyway, spoilers follow, in case there's an even bigger slowpoke in the world than me who hasn't played this masterpiece yet.

The beginning is very cool, atmospheric, the text, the stories, quite simple battles.. But unfortunately (though rather fortunately), I had no idea what awaited me further or how I should develop my hero (Of course, I read no FAQs, watched no Walkthroughs—who even needs these instructions??), so I chose my standard gentleman's set:
logistics, tactics, wisdom, intelligence, air and earth magic; there were 2 slots left to fill, what to take in them? Anyway, I thought for a long time whether to take magic, but chose the shittiest option — attack and archery. At first, it was a quite decent set, allowing me to make great use of the Castle creatures. Towards the middle of the game, it became clear that I had deprived myself of huge tactical potential: I had neither forgetfulness, nor a proper clone (and consequently, archangels were used very limitedly), nor berserker.. As a result, the battles were very tough, and I really suffered against the elemental creatures; I had to replay battles, memorizing a strictly defined sequence of moves/skips so that luck and morale would trigger at the right moments, and the wizard would cast what was needed..
Well, fortunately, if you make a strategic blunder, it can be fixed with strategic tricks — from the middle of the game, I began actively using artillery preparation via strong heroes (Arianna with single fast units spammed berserkers for 2-3 turns and then hit the boots), the last one I had to use this tactic on was Tempestus, the others had to be taken down "honestly". Practically all the battles of the final stage consisted of searching for solutions on how to kill enemy creatures most effectively, first, how to protect at least one squad of shooters afterwards, and second and most importantly, how to loop the enemies to get unlimited time for resurrection (4000 mana before the battle is a must). For example, in the battle with Eranicus and Eternia, the key units were the enemy storm elementals with the cart, about a dozen of whom I left alive, which gave me time for a couple hundred rounds to resurrect the fallen =). In Castle battles, the obvious solution was to lock the melee unit in the castle, breaking my own catapult at the right time.. In short, I created a challenge for myself.

But forget about the battles; that is, of course, the main thing we have to deal with, but damn! I have never seen maps like this! Hidden gates, inconspicuous passages, tucked-away artifacts and money. Finally, global turns also turned into a kind of challenge in attentiveness, and in some places, puzzles on how to get over there and over here, and all of this is stunningly designed visually! It feels like every bush was placed with love. Plot branches — my compliments, I didn't think something similar could be implemented in Heroes at all! When I saw how the branch with the summoning of the ancient hydra was implemented, I was in genuine shock! How cool it's done and, most importantly, it works like clockwork! Using saves, I went both ways, and although killing the hydra looked more profitable in terms of artifacts/experience and saving archangels, I chose the troop sacrifice option for "roleplay" (later it turned out that killing the hydra gives a disproportionately huge bonus in the form of an angel dwelling, which I personally had to buy out using the legion statue).

During the run, I messed things up:
1. I took the capital in the final days, as I spent a long time wandering around wondering how to even get to it.. (using water walking was the first "puzzle" of this kind; not being used to it, I struggled until the end)
2. Due to ignorance of the future, I didn't take water magic, severely cutting my tactical arsenal, which was felt strongly from the middle of the game. And fire too (although I couldn't have taken fire magic anyway; by the way, this is another super cool idea to tie the game's difficulty to skills! Want to play on King — play without fire magic!)
3. I messed up with the legion statue (for some reason I forgot that it gives growth not in one city, but in all of them) and collected it right at the end.. Only to immediately trade it for skills =) In the end, it barely worked for me..
4. I struggled with time: "where am I even supposed to go now? Where am I? Who am I and what have I forgotten here?"
5. Olvin in the tavern appeared to me later than Arianna, although I had several times performed a mass buyout of heroes with all my money (and towards the end of the map run, I discovered the "invite hero" button. Idiot.)
6. I also wasted the sphere of vulnerability towards the end of the map on something or other. It came back to haunt me in the final battle =). Couldn't berserk the undead, couldn't slow the dragon.. So I decided.
But what I want to note here, and what really surprises me: despite the fact that the author doesn't lead you by the hand and there are places where you can mess up, the map is actually beatable, i.e., my very first attempt didn't end in a dead end where you have to restart 8 months of gameplay =), but was quite passable if you used your brain a bit, both tactically and strategically. This means the map is PERFECTLY balanced. Such a huge map, with such a huge set of internal features, and I didn't manage to break it once!! Well, almost. The finale is so sad that, as a sign of protest, I led Aelwinn through the disguised blue gates to the portal on Greyscale, and then to Mogrein. Just so the map would end when this couple is on adjacent tiles, even if it doesn't fit the plot.
I finished the map in 10 months. Yes, that's a lot, and experienced players will say "pff.. slowpoke". But I didn't just play through this map, I explored it, fought my own mistakes, practically lived in it.

A soulful, detailed, stylish, insanely beautiful, moderately difficult, very interesting and long map.

Deep bows to the creator! You are a true Master!