The Lord is more alive than dead

darya.way13, hello! The player isn't actually required to quickly capture the elf/mage castles. Assess the situation, first level up one hero, then another. One will be the attacker, the second will stay to cover the rear. Plus, you can hire someone from the tavern for help. Then you bend over "orange" one by one (by the way, you don't have to touch them, but it's advisable — otherwise they won't leave you alone ), "blue," and finally "green." The latter will try to hinder you and destroy the key stack of ghost dragons. It's better not to lose it — without Eternal Night, the undead will have a hard time in these lands. You can approach the "Academy" castle after defeating the mage Hazim, who is located east of the city. I understand you came to the wizards on the island without proper preparation, but that's no problem — there's no time limit there either, and there's no need to rush (unless it's a speedrun walkthrough, of course). The battle in the pyramid is designed so that you can't pass it on the first try . If you do go there, it's better to do so after defeating the mages, having gathered a sufficiently powerful army by then.

Those who completed the map on "easy" are most likely either pros (who in Heroes have eaten not just a dog but a dragon), or did it on a very easy difficulty level, or with cheats... The list could go on forever. One of the testers completed it on Hero in 4-5 game months / one(!) real day (even though he hadn't seen the map before and couldn't know the nuances) — I was literally stunned 😳 And you say... I've been playing Heroes myself since around the 2010s, and I'm far from a maestro either, more of an enthusiast. So go for it, best of luck to you!