The Hero's Path

Well, I finally found the time to finish the mission for the Bad Guy. It took exactly 9 months (252 days) to complete the game. The only difficulties were in the very first stage, when you land in the Imperial city, completely bare, without any spells, and with an army that is absolutely unsuitable for combat. I even had to resort to the help of Imperial troops in the early stages, because the spearmen are more useful for defense than minotaurs, and they are cheaper. After I managed to break through to the Elven city, the problems ended, and the bullying of the monsters began, because the army now had furies, the clumsy brutes turned into cunning hunters, and the dark riders into agile ones. The archers, gifted by the liberated knight out of pity, were not used as "cannon fodder" and were also transformed into ranged attackers, and as a result, they eventually developed as a combat unit. In addition, I bought more forest archers in the Elven city. As a result, in addition to the mobile infantry, the army also had a decent ranged component, and to prevent the smaller archers from feeling down, I developed leadership. But most importantly, I gained the ability to buy dark magic spells; and combined with the unique characteristics of the dark elves (hunters, furies, and riders), these skills allowed me to defeat strong garrisons with minimal use of troops (fei.sav, enter_CHZ.sav, mumie.sav, gnom.sav, koshmar.sav, VULf.sav, element.sav, sachklopi.sav). And besides, I gained access to the sea, where I could acquire free resources and teach the Elven archer a lesson without risking losing him (by the way, I noticed that even battles in which he did not personally participate count, which, in my opinion, is not entirely correct). After that, everything went smoothly – I destroyed almost all the monsters on the map (this even accelerated the game, because I knew the "path of war"), but in order to save time, I didn't bother with the quests to restore the shipyard, the traveling monk (I abandoned him with the elves), guarding the pastures, searching for water elementals, building the triangle, dispersing the clouds, and finding a rare breed of trees – it was much easier and faster (in game time) to fight in the arena, especially since the opponents (whether they were squires or heroes) were again incredibly stupid gnom-na_arene.sav; I fought there until I ran out of mana. As a result, I had plenty of money (even though I bought all the creatures used as combat units, spent money in the alchemy shops buying all the available potions, formulas, and ingredients, but still ended up with almost 100,000). I received exactly that amount from the Khan for the Grail; I could have given the Grail to the elves, they would have paid more, but I didn't want to waste time. I also didn't visit the last tree, although I set aside the wood for it, and then I decided that it didn't matter whether it was level 34 or 35 – it's all the same, and I teleported directly to Hotabych's swamp (I retrained logistics to chaos), and from there I landed on the mountain. I only used alchemy to extend my turn, except for the battle with the final boss big_boss.sav (where the big boss looked frankly pathetic – the game was one-sided, because he couldn't even move once), as well as the battle with the captain, who treacherously attacked me near the entrance to the city with the gambling den and arena; there, too, I had to increase my initiative with alchemy so that the battle would be without losses. The most difficult battle was at the entrance to the Stronghold citadel.sav – I decided not to use alchemy at all and to win with magic and luck. I'm even a little sad that it's all over :( Once again, I express my admiration to the author of the map for his titanic work! I am attaching the final statistics and the battles that I liked.