bolotnik
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I recently completed a quite interesting and engaging custom map — "A Beautiful World".
About the map:
The map is well-balanced, detailed, and thoughtful. It consists of several large islands and several smaller ones. There is a uniquely designed underground level. Gameplay on this map turns out to be quite prolonged, but the map doesn't present any particular difficulty.
Walkthrough:
You can choose anyone except Inferno (even Conflux).
This time I decided to choose Rampart (green). Since it was my first time playing (I never look at the map in the editor beforehand), I chose a difficulty level of 160%. Starting hero — Mephala.
So, about the walkthrough itself:
There are enough resources on the map that building up the starting town doesn't take much time, so initially the main hero fought through the guards, while secondary heroes collected treats (later, a hero named Kyrr with Logistics appeared in the tavern, which sped up resource gathering). The neutrals in the area of the starting castle were cleared using groups of marksmen with almost no losses. The only thing is, I hesitated for a long time to break through the anti-magic garrisons, behind which were neutral towns (also Ramparts) and the exit to the shipyard. Consequently, in terms of pacing, I gave the AI a significant head start (almost a month) until I hired Gold Dragons. After breaking through the anti-magic GOs and reaching the shipyard, the most interesting and main part of the game truly began.
By this point, the AI had developed quite well, settled in, and captured neutral castles on their islands. They were already fully traversing the waters and fighting each other. I only reached the water by the end of the 5th month.
Here I made several mistakes, the price of which was another loss of momentum:
Initially, I sailed straight up, landed on the upper island, and captured the Blue player's town (Tower), but there was no way to go further into their domains because the path was blocked by a Keymaster's tent.
I had to return and take a very long detour (and without the Navigation skill). First, I landed on the Red player's island (Swamp), then captured towns one by one, moved to another island, hired heroes there and gathered troops; gradually, the Rampart army was supplemented by other races.
I must say that my walkthrough dragged on significantly because I had only two decent heroes — the main one, Mephala, and a secondary one, Kyrr; there were no other serious heroes (this is a problem for me, I can't develop several heroes at once; I have 1-2 main ones, and all others just pick up whatever is lying around), whereas the AI had quite a few capable heroes with decent troops. Therefore, from the 8th month of the game to the 11th month, there was a chaotic shuffle: I would take the enemy's towns, they would take mine, and then we would just chase each other back and forth. I should mention that by then, only I [green], Orange [Castle], Pink [Dungeon], and Blue [Tower] remained alive. My two main heroes (Kyrr and Mephala) were facing the main AI forces, who had captured towns outside their spawn areas. All this action took 3 months. In the end, I managed to catch Orange first, and then Pink. I didn't realize immediately that to enter Blue's lands, one must go through the underground; then I tried to sail and land on Blue's other side, but there was a town there as well, and beyond it, a Keymaster's tent.
I had some interesting battles in the dungeon against Pink; when I went to their underground, I had 2.5 times fewer troops than they did, and they had 3 heroes with superior forces. Because of this, I initially lost my hero — Mephala (I didn't have enough money to pay off the guards, so I had to engage in battle, and then I didn't have time to retreat, as I wanted to mow down more enemies). On the second attempt, with more or less decent troops, artifacts, and stats, I managed to break through with the second hero and eventually finish off Pink. While I was fighting Pink, Blue didn't sleep and was nibbling away at my towns here and there. In the end, I managed to pin them down and drive them back to their snow only by the 14th month (by this time, the armies were simply massive; mana depleted faster than troops). Consequently, I had to hire heroes up to the maximum, level them all up more or less, and prevent Blue from leaving their home island.
The main battle was hard, as their main hero (Fafnir) had dug in at the starting castle, so I had to storm the castle. I attacked with hero Kyrr using purely Rampart troops; Fafnir also had only Tower troops. This is where the part comes in that I don't like much, but is essentially inevitable on large maps when a game drags on — the huge number of troops, several thousand per stack; for instance, the enemy had 6k Master Gremlins and nearly 1k Titans. I attacked with a similar numerical layout. But before the main attack, I attacked about 4 more times with secondary heroes and various troops. After a very long and tense battle, I managed to win, with only 2 Dendroid Warriors left at the end. This was already in the 19th month of the game. After that, there were no major difficulties; I took the remaining two towns, resulting in a victory on 19-2-5. I don't even want to mention the shameful amount of points (I never dug up the Grail). I think that on a second walkthrough, I can significantly improve the result.
I believe skilled players will have only positive emotions from this map, and of course, the map itself will be completed many times faster. Since I created the problems on this map myself.
And yet, I would like to ask how to play with a larger number of heroes, so that there are 3, 4, or 5 heroes not differing much from each other in primary skills, which could be used equally well against AI heroes. Otherwise, I have 1-2 main ones and all the others are just runners. And on XL maps with a large number of towns, this becomes a problem.
About the map:
The map is well-balanced, detailed, and thoughtful. It consists of several large islands and several smaller ones. There is a uniquely designed underground level. Gameplay on this map turns out to be quite prolonged, but the map doesn't present any particular difficulty.
Walkthrough:
You can choose anyone except Inferno (even Conflux).
This time I decided to choose Rampart (green). Since it was my first time playing (I never look at the map in the editor beforehand), I chose a difficulty level of 160%. Starting hero — Mephala.
So, about the walkthrough itself:
There are enough resources on the map that building up the starting town doesn't take much time, so initially the main hero fought through the guards, while secondary heroes collected treats (later, a hero named Kyrr with Logistics appeared in the tavern, which sped up resource gathering). The neutrals in the area of the starting castle were cleared using groups of marksmen with almost no losses. The only thing is, I hesitated for a long time to break through the anti-magic garrisons, behind which were neutral towns (also Ramparts) and the exit to the shipyard. Consequently, in terms of pacing, I gave the AI a significant head start (almost a month) until I hired Gold Dragons. After breaking through the anti-magic GOs and reaching the shipyard, the most interesting and main part of the game truly began.
By this point, the AI had developed quite well, settled in, and captured neutral castles on their islands. They were already fully traversing the waters and fighting each other. I only reached the water by the end of the 5th month.
Here I made several mistakes, the price of which was another loss of momentum:
Initially, I sailed straight up, landed on the upper island, and captured the Blue player's town (Tower), but there was no way to go further into their domains because the path was blocked by a Keymaster's tent.
I had to return and take a very long detour (and without the Navigation skill). First, I landed on the Red player's island (Swamp), then captured towns one by one, moved to another island, hired heroes there and gathered troops; gradually, the Rampart army was supplemented by other races.
I must say that my walkthrough dragged on significantly because I had only two decent heroes — the main one, Mephala, and a secondary one, Kyrr; there were no other serious heroes (this is a problem for me, I can't develop several heroes at once; I have 1-2 main ones, and all others just pick up whatever is lying around), whereas the AI had quite a few capable heroes with decent troops. Therefore, from the 8th month of the game to the 11th month, there was a chaotic shuffle: I would take the enemy's towns, they would take mine, and then we would just chase each other back and forth. I should mention that by then, only I [green], Orange [Castle], Pink [Dungeon], and Blue [Tower] remained alive. My two main heroes (Kyrr and Mephala) were facing the main AI forces, who had captured towns outside their spawn areas. All this action took 3 months. In the end, I managed to catch Orange first, and then Pink. I didn't realize immediately that to enter Blue's lands, one must go through the underground; then I tried to sail and land on Blue's other side, but there was a town there as well, and beyond it, a Keymaster's tent.
I had some interesting battles in the dungeon against Pink; when I went to their underground, I had 2.5 times fewer troops than they did, and they had 3 heroes with superior forces. Because of this, I initially lost my hero — Mephala (I didn't have enough money to pay off the guards, so I had to engage in battle, and then I didn't have time to retreat, as I wanted to mow down more enemies). On the second attempt, with more or less decent troops, artifacts, and stats, I managed to break through with the second hero and eventually finish off Pink. While I was fighting Pink, Blue didn't sleep and was nibbling away at my towns here and there. In the end, I managed to pin them down and drive them back to their snow only by the 14th month (by this time, the armies were simply massive; mana depleted faster than troops). Consequently, I had to hire heroes up to the maximum, level them all up more or less, and prevent Blue from leaving their home island.
The main battle was hard, as their main hero (Fafnir) had dug in at the starting castle, so I had to storm the castle. I attacked with hero Kyrr using purely Rampart troops; Fafnir also had only Tower troops. This is where the part comes in that I don't like much, but is essentially inevitable on large maps when a game drags on — the huge number of troops, several thousand per stack; for instance, the enemy had 6k Master Gremlins and nearly 1k Titans. I attacked with a similar numerical layout. But before the main attack, I attacked about 4 more times with secondary heroes and various troops. After a very long and tense battle, I managed to win, with only 2 Dendroid Warriors left at the end. This was already in the 19th month of the game. After that, there were no major difficulties; I took the remaining two towns, resulting in a victory on 19-2-5. I don't even want to mention the shameful amount of points (I never dug up the Grail). I think that on a second walkthrough, I can significantly improve the result.
I believe skilled players will have only positive emotions from this map, and of course, the map itself will be completed many times faster. Since I created the problems on this map myself.
And yet, I would like to ask how to play with a larger number of heroes, so that there are 3, 4, or 5 heroes not differing much from each other in primary skills, which could be used equally well against AI heroes. Otherwise, I have 1-2 main ones and all the others are just runners. And on XL maps with a large number of towns, this becomes a problem.