Walkthroughs for custom maps.

Devilish Pride: Episodes VII, VIII, IX.

This is the final part of the “Prides” trilogy.
Plot: Queen Alaria’s defeated Estor Xyron is sent to work in the mines; there, our old acquaintances, Gunnar and Das, also toil. Xyron dreams of conquering the world, and he has already devised a plan, but for now, he needs to be patient. Xyron’s bride, Octavia, received instructions from him before his imprisonment and set off to an island from which she will begin to implement the great plan of her betrothed. At the same time, the Cyclops King, who has lost all his castles and been exiled to a foreign land, begins to gather his forces to return and reclaim his homeland.
At first, I couldn’t get the hang of this map; I had to start it for the 3rd time! The first time, I simply got distracted and didn’t capture the city before the end of the week. The second time, I made a couple of mistakes, which resulted in the Cyclops King being hopelessly blocked, which made it impossible to continue the game properly.
Unlike the two previous maps, here we start without a city. However, on the 7th day, Xyron reveals the location of the Grail to us, and immediately after capturing Inferno, we dig it up and erect the God of Fire.
I will write about the map’s shortcomings a little later, but for now, I will talk about the “feature” that I really liked as an original idea (remember, the map was made back in 1999!): in one place, in the sea, a boat blocks the way, preventing Octavia from meeting the Cyclops King and obtaining the City Portal scroll she needs.
Minor and more significant flaws were revealed almost immediately:
1) The punishing club of the ogre, which the Cyclops King would very much like to have, is located to the right of the shipyard (cell 90,9) in an event, which means it is invisible, and the cell with it is located in such a way that the player may not even visit it – that’s what happened to me the first time, and then I looked in the editor to see where it is (the ogres, who join him a little west of there, tell the Cyclops King about it). An annoying oversight or a deliberate act? And this is at the very beginning of the game! And this is not the only “hide-and-seek” element on the map: in the west, where Octavia begins, in cell 33,4 behind the volcano, lie the Boots of Levitation she needs; and in cell 43,3 behind the Nest on the cliff, lies the Sphere of Prohibition (although it is at least slightly visible), which is necessary to complete the map. Perhaps the author of this trilogy was the first to use “hide-and-seek”.
2) Even with the author’s advice, it is not clear enough what the Cyclops King should do and in what sequence, in order to, after visiting the green tent, defeat Astral, which can lead to an unpleasant situation, which I encountered in my second attempt to complete the map. So: after joining the ogres, you need to immediately sail southwest, where the crusaders guard the Shrine of Magical Thought, which gives us the Forgetfulness spell we need. And only after that should you sail east and south to land near the green tent and capture the Cyclops cave. And there, if we get in the boat again, Astral with 500 master gremlins will definitely attack us.
3) The necromantic respawn here consists of 3 adjacent areas, separated by white border guards; the outermost area, where the weakest heroes are, has an open exit to the sea (and the first guests from there arrived as early as the 2nd week). And the white tent at the necromancers stands in the middle area, guarded by ghost dragons. I realized that if I don’t let the necromancers visit this tent, they won’t be able to leave the 3rd area (where their strongest heroes are). Therefore, I invaded the second area and timed it so that the necromancer Septienna, who lived there, went to sea, and I captured that Necropolis and later defeated Septienna.
4) When I, prepared, invaded the 3rd necromantic area, it turned out that the main enemy, Tamika, was holed up in a Necropolis standing on cursed land and did not want to come out of it! This is one of the most frequent and most unpopular tricks of map authors, and perhaps Jason Russell was the first to use it.
5) The main drawback of the author’s design of the map: when Octavia enters a one-way portal, from which she ends up on an island among the swamps, she must visit the mage’s hut so that Xyron can see the magical island in the south and be able to go there across the water. But at the same time, Octavia is inevitably defeated by Verdish with a thousand chaos hydras, puts on the Boots of Levitation, and goes to the Fortresses, visiting the blue tent and releasing her purple heroes from the other lands they own (Tower, Dungeon, and Inferno). This all goes strictly according to the author’s plan, but Octavia before that visits the black tent, and then the blue one. Understanding that it will be much easier to deal with Purple, I myself invaded his lands, defeated the heroes who were there, and captured the cities. After that, Purple had only the Inferno zone in the dungeon left, which I could only get to after Octavia visited the mage’s hut, and the swamps. If the author wanted a more difficult game, he would have made it so that it would be impossible to get to Purple before Verdish was freed.
6) Finally, the presence of Flight and Dimension Door in Purple’s last respawn, in Inferno, although it is very pleasing, is completely unnecessary for further progress. Having obtained these spells, we can not eliminate the Red border guards, and we will finish the game by destroying Pink in 2 days!
And also – a moment that evokes both a smile and bewilderment: why does Purple have three blue tents almost next to each other in one zone, when one would be enough?!
So, the thoughtfulness of “Devilish Pride” leaves something to be desired. Taking all of the above into account, if the first two maps of the trilogy can be called excellent, then this one is only good.
Another interesting point: as in the previous part of the trilogy, after defeating the necromancers and taking the Cloak of the Lich King, I decided: it shouldn’t go to waste, and, meeting Isra in the tavern, I hired him, gave him the Cloak, and sent him to the desert to learn and “shear” liches. Only this time, the end of the game was already near, and Isra did not have time to bring any real benefit. However, this is not important.
The funniest thing: the Hourglass, required for victory, suddenly turned out to be with Olema, whom Octavia defeated near the Library with ease, because Olema had almost no troops. But for complete satisfaction, I did not immediately take the Hourglass to the castle, where I would immediately be congratulated on my victory: I wanted to defeat all the enemies, including Verdish (although defeating her will clearly be difficult).
For lovers of big battles, there are several pleasant battles here: with 2000 giants in the garrison, with golden dragons at the Utopia of Dragons (when I got to them, there were 3362 of them instead of the initial 500!), and finally, with the queen Est herself.
Having dealt with Pink, Xyron defeated Verdish: Blindness with expert fire magic helped.
Victory came on the 6th month, 2nd week, 1st day, when I captured Purple’s last Fortress.
Result: 148 days, 490 points; it could have been completed faster, but that’s not bad either.