Eldgernon
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I missed a brilliant move, even though I was seemingly very close to it.:) Then the number of creatures could have been increased by at least 2 times.
I'm overlooking a trick with the Necromancer that could have given not just one extra dozen thousand zombies.
Continuation.
In my opinion, the scheme for capturing castles on the very first day has already been discussed enough. Further, I will only focus on the key moments of the first day.
After freeing Nagash, the priority castles to capture were Electrising and the elven one (141-2) in the very top right corner.
Electrising was needed because of the Raper's "white mushroom" in the form of 55 joining elementals (money was chronically short, sold them in the mercenary guild). Besides, this castle provided access to 141-2. After capturing the corner castle, Nagash was immediately delivered there and took a position by the path. From that moment on, all necessary heroes were bought in 141-2. They were all first sent through Nagash's lecture, then through the stable. Then, those who could, cast Portal, the rest were grounded against the harpies and bought back wherever needed.
I was stuck for a couple of days solving the puzzle of reaching the Inferno respawn. In front of the portal leading there stood 400 storms. Too big a chunk to take down with a non-necro hero. Teaching necromancy to a computer hero (via a pandora) also pinched — such a hero would almost immediately get advanced necromancy and then become useless. In the end, I found Inteus, who received not only necromancy from the pandora but also Air-2. Then he portaled to the elven one (40-1), along the way expertised Air, hopped to the flag near the portal, farmed speed on neutrals (including those 400 storms), and that was enough to capture Fire.
It turned out comically with the island where the prison is. Initially, I left Sandro there, who was fighting for the prison. According to the plan, Sandro, after getting the 2nd Cloak of the Undead King on the second day, was supposed to clear it all solo in 3-4 days. Then I realized that Sandro was getting both Earth and Air in his skills, and he would be more useful hopping across continents. I dismissed Sandro at the end of the first day and brought Vokial to the same position by the end of the second day, for whom Air was not in the cards. And at the start of the third day, I disbanded Vokial from there too:), completely abandoning the second Cloak of the Undead King. Vokial didn't manage to clear it all there by the 4th day, he did it differently.
Well, and with the red computer, I also had problems, like some others.
I fell for it — Adrien standing there nicely behind a column, and I decided to leave her alive, not capturing that last castle. The plan was to later remove the column, after first clearing that entire respawn, wait for Adrien to come out of the castle, and kill her for the quest. But Dirty outplayed me here.:) Only when it was too late to roll back and replay did I find out that in the editor settings, Adrien has the command "Stand still." Thank goodness a solution later appeared on how to kill Adrien without winning and ending the game.
I put only the specialist Woy on the water, near the grail castle 21-34, to take a pile in the water worth 100K.
Day Two.
Simple strategy. Level up the skills of all the main necro-cutters who can get Air. There were 7 such people. This task perfectly combined with the second — to resolve all the problematic battles requiring a large army for the fight during the day. Since at the end of the second day, 40 Black Dragons were planned to be sold in the guild for money, leaving the bare minimum for further battles.
On this day, I put two necros with navigation on the water for 2 fights with the fish.
Woy, on this day, after collecting the gold, crashed on the "ship," removed the column by Adrien, and got back into the water, but now at point 27-143. For a cruise to another "white mushroom" — 10 Black Dragons behind the volcano.
As waiters for the necro-cutters, I used similarly — Rion, Dessa, Labetha, and I also ran Malcolm around.
Day 3, 4.
Strategy — final global cleanup.
Tactics monotonous, tedious, but extremely effective. Speed farming at the oasis in Dunwal. For ordinary heroes without Air, it made no sense — they went into negative MP, but for heroes with expert Air, each lap at the oasis (castle-oasis-thieves) gave at least 150 MP. Accordingly, my best necro-cutter Tant, after 100 speed farms, had +15K MP. And there were seven necro air specialists in total. Plus Inteus too. I also speed-farmed him, but he only handled the small fry — his experience was already pre-critical; at level 20 he would get advance-necro anyway.
There was doubt whether there would be enough money to clean up only this way. So, along the way, I hedged my bets and also cleared with the other loh-necros within range of the castles.
As a result, 21 Crystal Dragons and about 100K gold remained.
On the last, 4th day, two more necros conducted 2 battles with the remaining 2 stacks in the water. The fight with 4K fish was done only with zombies — I sent a hero with Tactics and Air (for mass haste).
Ships were also not all taken. There are 9 of them in total, I think; I took about 4.
El, well done!!! Will you play in a co-op game? You wanted a small map
I confess — you really upset me when you announced your "Air Magic."
I, like vbn, don't like large maps. But I still got involved, got bogged down in it, and completely exhausted myself. And then you announce the map of my dreams...:smile05: