samatron
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Finally, the other day I finished playing this map after a short break.
The main thing: I liked the map! You need to keep in mind that I don't like "Impossible" difficulty (this is the 3rd one I've completed out of those). And from the very beginning, I didn't believe I could do it. But when I did!.. I've never gotten almost 1.5 million experience points in a single battle before! And, by the way, the result took the top spot in the leaderboard; all the previous ones are much more modest.
I won by fulfilling the first condition: I captured Mazata and built the Grail there. I tried to defeat the remaining enemies, but the battle with Valeska (pink) cost me too many of my units, and with the available army and skills, I couldn't defeat Axis (orange) and Nagash (pink).
What's good (in my opinion):
1. There is no dictation from the author: the player is free to choose both the method of victory and the path to follow. The Seers give side quests, which are not required to complete. The Guardians can be bypassed by obtaining the Wings of the Angel (I was even disappointed when I got them: if I had known where they were, I would have flown a long time ago). Personally, I didn't give anything to anyone, I just received a gift from the Seer for having initial skills of 40+.
2. There are many artifacts, some even 2-3 of each. Everything you could wish for. I collected 2 Statues of the Legion, 2 or 3 Horns of Plenty.
3. There are enough "enhancers" in the Dungeon (Libraries of Enlightenment, Arenas).
4. There are also plenty of monsters to upgrade.
Now about hiding the monoliths behind volcanoes: on the one hand, it seems like an original trick (I haven't seen anything like it yet), but on the other hand, you have to look for them! Pixel-hunting is not a very pleasant activity, especially in "Heroes". Besides, you can't get to Mazata otherwise.
What personally bothers me:
1. The deliberate rectangularity of the landscape.
2. Inferno on patches of clover among the lava. It's humor, I guess...
What remains unclear: How did Orange (Axis) manage to get 700+ Phoenixes, if, in theory, Phoenixes are everywhere as guards? I even checked in the editor later: he definitely took them from the Blue Tent, but that's impossible, because they are set not to join! But this is a question for WoG, not for you, Samatron (as I already said, I play everything in WoG: it's more interesting).
My final rating (the answer options in the poll are not very detailed): approximately 8.5 out of 10. That is, "very good, except for minor flaws".
I wish you many more interesting maps! Keep making them!
Now I'm playing your "Island of the Lesser Skull".
It's a pity that I forgot to disable the Wings of the Angel in the editor; otherwise, the walkthrough would be much easier and would change the playthrough. This artifact was not intended to be used in the map. Thank you for writing about this; I will fix the map. -)
The rectangularity is indeed present. Of course, this is what most people put as the first drawback. You can look at it differently. In general, the map does not claim to be the best. I will only say that the idea of the map with rectangular territories was completely different, but it turned out the way it turned out.
The map can be completed by fulfilling two conditions: building the Grail and defeating all opponents.
It is not necessary to find the hidden monoliths to get to Mazata. There is another way.
Due to the time that has passed since the maps were created, I may miss such moments as "Wings of the Angel" and so on. So I will be glad for any comments on the walkthrough.
Thank you for all your wishes.
I would like to draw your attention to the fact that the map "Island of the Lesser Skull" was re-uploaded on 07/21/2010 with the identified shortcomings corrected.