Walkthroughs for custom maps.

Mist and Mysteries

The other day, I completed a wonderful map that I want to briefly describe (author - Audun; link for download).
In terms of genre, this is a classic strategy game with all its inherent features: to win, you simply need to defeat all enemies and capture all their cities. There are no mandatory quests, no restrictions (the most valuable spells are available, but they can only be obtained after acquiring the corresponding artifacts), and no plot. There are also no tricky author's tricks that could spoil your mood (hiding objects, etc.). There are many seers, but completing their quests is not necessary. The map size is XL, and it features the Dungeon faction. The graphics are good, and the map is quite densely populated.
I played as the Dungeon, under the Purple Flag. At the beginning, after surveying the starting area, I decided to choose a "high" difficulty level because there are almost no freely available resources around, and on expert or impossible difficulty, the player's development at the start would be quite slow. Indeed, I managed to quickly build up my capital, gather an army, and subsequent actions proceeded at a rapid pace; I never had to simply stall to accumulate troops for a particularly difficult battle; I simply captured the third Dungeon last, and then broke through the anti-magic garrison, which blocked the only way to the "big world." By the way, the isolation of the Purple Flag's starting area also "helps" the player: you can develop without much haste and fear of a sudden attack (even later, until the end of the game, uninvited guests did not visit my lands).
At the end of the initial stage of the game, I must admit, luck played an important role: in one place, the creatures guarding the Shield of the Guardian suddenly joined me (I could have defeated them, but I decided to use them to destroy a squad of black dragons that blocked the entrance to the 3rd Dungeon), and after passing the garrison, a squad of ancient creatures also joined (in front of the underground Cartographer). This was probably an oversight by the author; but I think that a similar stroke of luck also occurred with my enemies. A couple of months later, a hundred Chaos Hydras, guarding the Tome of Earth Magic, also wanted to join me, but I had already destroyed them.
I defeated all the enemies, captured all the cities except for one neutral one (the entrance to it was blocked by a Guardian, who required me to bring a Dragon hero, which I could not find, although I freed everyone I met from prisons; it seems that someone else freed him, and then he died), dug up the Grail, and placed it in the city. Victory came on the 5th month, 4th week, 6th day (a total of 139 days).
As for the disadvantages of the map, I can only note that the "mist and mysteries" promised in the title are missing, that is, there are no secret, hard-to-reach areas where something particularly valuable and interesting is hidden, and that, contrary to what the author stated in the description:

The map offers challenges both in start, middle and end game,

after a successful start, the game soon becomes frankly easy – my army is much stronger than all the enemy armies, and defeating them is not difficult; finally, the most valuable artifacts that give the main "transport" spells – City Portal, Fly, and Dimension Door – should have been guarded more seriously, and it turned out to be quite easy to capture the underground Cartographer. However, on the other hand, the ability to win quickly on a map of this size is more of a plus than a minus; and for those who like something "more difficult," there are enough challenging maps (the next one I started playing is just such a map).