I finished playing the map (1.0) to the end on the "hero" difficulty. The scenario itself is original and well-designed. I liked the map design, the landscape, and the placement of various upgrades. It's beautiful. The animations are made with unparalleled skill. One could write a lot about their merits. However, the gameplay turned out to be somewhat uneven for me – very interesting at the beginning and mediocre towards the end. The AI's effectiveness lasted for about 3 weeks, after which it started sending out underdeveloped heroes that could be easily defeated by secondary and tertiary heroes. But at the same time, the turquoise castles were guarded by huge garrisons that Varenna couldn't take. The main hero wandered around as he pleased, waved goodbye to the enemy castles, and calmly built up his army in his own. After a month, it became clear that the computer had already lost and was just going through the motions – all that was left was to wait for the finale. The feeling of monotony was amplified by the endless obelisks and the inability to start digging for the "tear" even approximately. The confusion was added to by the absurdity of the scouts appearing. (I largely agree with Player100 (messages 18 and 32), i.e., there is no turquoise faction, the map-puzzle is open, the "tear" has not been dug up – the scouts stole something). The hunt for them can be compared to shooting at cockroaches with buckshot. Another disappointment was the battle with the gnome. For some reason, he had no magic or even runes, just a mass of troops. I started this battle only for testing purposes, since the balance of power was: "very high danger." But, already in the process, I realized that the gnome was defenseless like Goliath before David. It would have been better to give him fewer troops but magic and runes. In my opinion, the map has great potential for editing.
P.S. Vittorio with a cart and without a cart are two very different things.