Added 25 minutes ago
Author: Daniela Stieh
Download link: see the attached archive.
So, I paid tribute to one of the oldest "heroic" hits. I'll write a little more about this map.
Plot: This is the story of the conquering wars of a great barbarian commander named Leondegrance. (Notably, one of the first brutal and "bloody" maps was created by a girl).
Overall, the map is quite good. Its actual difficulty is not very high: players with sufficient experience will not encounter any particular difficulties (and those who do will read the advice below).
At first, to be honest, I wasn't very interested in playing through this map, but it got much better later on. The sections of the path where you only have to control Leondegrance, while the other heroes just stand and wait, are not very interesting. Fortunately, there are not many of these sections, and usually all the heroes have something to do: some are gathering troops from all the cities, some are exploring the surroundings, some are leveling up...
I already wrote that I encountered flying units of the Pink faction: he managed to reach almost the Citadel of Ooresdome - even though his native zones are in the northeast of the dungeon and one city is in the southwest of the dungeon. It turned out that Flight is available in the guild of mages in one of the Necropolises in the northeast, so the Pink faction was flying completely legally. Fortunately, no other enemies flew, and I didn't have any problems with that. (Update: it turned out that I was playing the not the latest version. In the updated, AB version, this problem should not exist)
The last and strongest of the enemies - the knight Gwhenwyfar (Orange) - is the author's pseudonym. It is not easy to defeat her, but it is possible.
My result is not bad: victory on 9-4-3, 248 days, 492 points (the author wrote that the approximate completion time is 300 days).
P.S. After this map, you will love chess! ;)
After you reach the Fortress on the hill, try to upgrade troops of levels 1-4 in it: for the first time, there will always be many more troops than you can hire!
Capture the outer dwellings belonging to the enemies. This will reduce the growth in their cities, and in addition, in the 4 swamp cities, a considerable additional army will gradually gather, which can be hired when there is enough money for it.
Since you capture at least one Fortress, try to take at least one monster with you that is faster than the barbarian ones: dragonfly, black dragon, archdevil, archangel.
Tips with spoilers for those who are experiencing difficulties, I decided not to publish yet: they turned out to be quite detailed; this is more of a story about my playthrough of the map. If anyone needs them, I will write them.
Update: Attention! I found (and replaced in the collection of the best maps) the updated, AB version of this map (in the attachment)! Everyone who previously downloaded the old, RoE version should also update it!
(Василь Симоненко. Люди – прекрасні)