scars of reality
My impressions of the map are positive – it's a very well-designed and complex map, with only minor, non-critical flaws.
I completely agree that Dark Man is a very interesting and, most importantly, well-designed map, and not just some primitive run from corner to corner, as many believe. The author has certainly tried to make the game as difficult as possible for the player (and from the very first moves), but at the same time, he provides a lot of opportunities. There are overpowered artifacts like the Titan's Thunder or the Armageddon Blade, free troops, and the choice of who to play as: you can play as Orrin and the sorcerers; or as Crag and the elves; or you can divide the battles equally between all three main heroes. The player just needs to try to take advantage of these opportunities.
Yes, there are some minor flaws in the map, but they are not particularly critical (except for Gundula, who sometimes causes lag).
Regarding Maverick's walkthrough review. It's interesting to compare the timings and screenshots presented with what I had when I ran the map a second time as an experiment. I managed to do some things faster, and some things slower.
One interesting thing I can remember is how I killed Gunnar. On day 243, with Zydar, during the siege of the Castle. Honestly, putting a 108-level logistician in the Castle is quite a challenge. It went like this: on day 241, he landed near the Castle of Loenis. After that, over the course of two game days, I kept sending heroes to him to create a route to the Castle. In the end, I probably spent a total of five hours moving three heroes back and forth in front of Gunnar's nose in all sorts of combinations, so that he would finally reach the Castle on his last move. And he, the rascal, would go this way or that. Sometimes he would get in a boat, and sometimes he would run off in who knows what direction. I cursed, swore, and abandoned this stupid idea, and then returned to it, but in the end, I managed to lure him into the Castle and finish him off there.
I killed Jeddite on day 237 with Orrin. He retreats without any problems with a double Fast Forward. This allowed me to double Zydar's mana and, accordingly, kill Gunnar.
I killed Malekith almost two weeks later, but since I had almost all the enemies destroyed by that time (except for some bosses and minor units), and almost all the Castles captured, the rest of the game took only a week. Moreover, with the black ball, you can kill enemies in batches. For example, Crag, at level 341, cleared Moner, Haart, and Solmyr in one day.
And the screenshots are funny, showing how different the playthroughs are. Almost all the heroes shown in the screenshots had completely different armies in my game. Therefore, as I said, each playthrough of this map is unique in its own way, and this uniqueness is created not only by the player's actions but also by the actions of the computer.