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HOW I PLAYED THROUGH XIEDU
I recently completed the well-known Chinese map Xiedu, and since my playthrough differed in places from how many other players played it, I decided to write about it. But before I begin, I'll make a few caveats.
First, I am not a very high-level player, let alone a pro or a hardcore player. I started playing Heroes again only a couple of years ago, and that was mostly out of nostalgia. Before that, the last time I played was back in the early 2000s. And even now, I don't play often, and in those couple of years, I've beaten maybe 15-20 maps of relatively low difficulty. Accordingly, I don't have a lot of experience in playing through complex maps or battles. I don't know many tricks, complex mechanics, game bugs, and other nuances well known to skilled players. I had to figure many things out on my own, and there are many I still don't know about to this day. Therefore, I would rate my level as a "solid amateur".
I played this map more out of curiosity, and besides, damn it, I had to try to beat a difficult Chinese map at least once in my life. The map, which many consider a masterpiece of mapmaking and which is one of the most famous among hardcore maps, was the best candidate for that role.
Second, I started the map without the slightest idea of what awaited me ahead. I had never watched or read any other players' playthroughs before and tried to minimize the use of the editor (I only looked into it mainly to clarify some details, but didn't examine anything globally). Accordingly, my playthrough was quite slow – over 12 months according to the in-game calendar. So if anyone is interested in a fast-paced playthrough, this is definitely not for you.
Third, reading various comments about the map, I concluded that during its playthrough, two things are highly recommended:
1) hit-and-run (the author gives a tavern relatively early, and also, closer to the final stretch, a full set of diplomatic artifacts);
2) using the special map tiles with very convenient battle terrain.
I decided, as much as possible, to play the map without using these tricks, pretending I had no idea about either hit-and-run (though I used this tactic back when I played in the 90s-2000s) or the "special" tiles (which I genuinely didn't know about). I'll say right away, if you play slowly and complete the map in 12+ months, it's entirely possible to beat it this way. If you keep a fast pace, then you definitely can't do without the aforementioned tricks.
Fourth, even before I started the map, I sometimes came across the opinion that this map puts the player in very strict constraints and punishes them during the playthrough for any attempt at "going off-script," and that you need to play it almost tile by tile, strictly following the author's design. Move right, move left – execution. That is fundamentally wrong. The author does set the direction for how the map is played, but this is common to almost all custom maps. The player moves from location to location, conquering territories and castles in the sequence set by the author, but their specific actions in these locations have a fairly high degree of variability. Below, I will describe how I played the map, and my actions in some cases differed significantly from the actions of other players (later I became familiar with other playthroughs in general terms).
And finally, the last thing. Recently, some kind person made a machine translation of the map into Russian. That's the version I played. The map plays fine, without bugs, crashes, or other "pleasant" surprises. Although I honestly admit, I barely read the messages. It was enough for me that they just looked like normal text, rather than being a set of some eye-straining squiggles.
Link to the "russified" version of the map https://heroesportal.net/maps/view/4333
01. THE BEGINNING
The description of the beginning will be somewhat chaotic because at one point I abandoned the map (more on that later). I deleted all saves except the last one and returned to it only a few weeks later. So I'll tell it from memory without pictures or videos.
True, I remember one thing clearly – in the initial stage, I had to replay an incredible number of times. This applied to individual battles that needed to be won with minimal losses, which, given the lack of "Resurrection" and considering that the enemy was much stronger, required a huge number of attempts. It also applied to certain segments of the playthrough. Sometimes I had to roll back days or even weeks and replay. To be fair, it should be noted that later on, I had to replay much less frequently.
So, at the start, we are given three heroes. Two of them are purely technical, and one is our main hero, who will be with us until the end.
The first "technical" hero is a very high-level Necromancer with thousands of bone dragons and ghost dragons. All he has to do is, on the first day, kill the hero Wina sitting in a Tower, and on the second day, peacefully fade into oblivion, being destroyed by an imbalanced green hero of incredibly high level coming from a portal.
It's worth noting that to follow the author's design precisely, this place must be played with HD+ disabled. Otherwise, you can cheat a little and save both the Necromancer with his huge army of dragons and the castle. I didn't know this when playing the map, so I also saved this hero. But upon learning later that this was incorrect, I never used either the hero or his troops – he just sat in the castle until the end of the game.
The second "technical" hero is Luna with the "Fire Wall" specialty. This hero remains inactive for quite a while and is only needed to visit the Green Tent at a certain moment, after first fighting a rather interesting battle against titans and giants. Her mission on the map ends there.
We start playing with a hero who, in the "russified" version, is named Rogge. My start was, to put it mildly, slow. For a whole week, I wandered around the starting location, collecting everything that could be collected and visiting everything that could be visited. Only on the 7th day did I crawl to my first castle on the starting respawn and free my second active hero from prison, named Wind Moon, with a dowry of 1 skeleton.
Having not the slightest idea of what I should do or where to go, for the next month and a half to two months, I, with two heroes, idly wandered around the starting location, collecting various useless junk like peasants or thieves along the way (assuming that all these folk would probably be needed somewhere, as is often the case on custom maps). During my wanderings, I discovered that we were surrounded by several castles locked by quest Guardians or strong stacks of champions, as well as several gates with garrisons. At first, I naively assumed that after a while I would be able to capture these castles, build an army from them, and show the enemies a thing or two. How wrong I was. :D
Another mistake was that in battles and in the few upgrade buildings, I only leveled up my main hero Rogge, while the lady named Wind Moon was exclusively engaged in collecting various roadside junk.
Also, during these month and a half, I repelled two attacks from fairly strong heroes. One of them came from behind the gates with a garrison on the left, and the other, with wyverns, came from the right side. In both cases, I fought them off while sitting in the castle, suffering only minor losses. Another hero, who had previously arrived by boat, was killed in the field after a while. Additionally, another Castle was captured, as well as a Rampart with a treasury, access to which was opened by one of the aforementioned heroes.
After that, there was a lull for a while, and as a result of exploring the area, I discovered that there was nowhere to go except down. Breaking through the gates with the garrison, we enter a small location with another Castle locked by a Guardian, and a Seer's Hut urgently demanding that the hero Wind Moon be brought there.
This is where I got frustrated for the first time. The thing is, this seer teaches the hero Wind Moon the "Water Walk" spell, which she needs to travel the water path to her new home. I was frustrated because I hadn't leveled up Wind Moon at all. She only had Logistics and Water Magic as secondary skills, and that's how she stayed. And to learn "Water Walk" without advanced Wisdom is impossible. Plus, it became clear that this lady would also need to be decently leveled up. In short, I had to roll back several weeks and more actively involve her in the gameplay.
When the calendar was already approaching the end of the second month, I finally reached the hero with a bunch of dwarves and cyclopes blocking the passage to the portal leading to the necro respawn. After breaking through him and sending the hastily leveled Wind Moon to the portal, I was surprised to discover that monsters started coming out of the castles that were previously locked, monsters so terrifying that just seeing them could cause psychological trauma.
It became clear that there was no way for the second hero (Rogge) to return back, because even if he ran at full speed to his first castle, he would hardly be able to slip past a very strong hero under a pink flag. And a few days later, an even more monstrous fellow sailed out of the turquoise castle. So I had to roll back almost a month again and replay the section.
Thus cutting off 1-2 weeks, I was able, in a more comfortable situation, to send Wind Moon to visit the Necromancers, while Rogge, with the entire army and the obsidian gargoyles picked up along the way (we'll need them later), managed to return to his castle.
Meanwhile, Wind Moon begins to settle into the Necromancer location, where she has a number of tasks to complete: visit the Black Tent; free a hero named Grigari from prison; collect the Cloak of the Undead King (COTUK), for which she must defeat three fairly strong Necromancers (taking one part of this assembled artifact from each); and also take over their remaining castles. I fought off all three with minimal or no losses while sitting in the central castle.
Rogge is not idle on the surface either. I waited for the turquoise hero to leave the neighboring castle, and after killing the 2400 crossbowmen left in the castle, I captured it. It had a Portal of Glory built. This step later brought me some dividends, but more on that later. The turquoise hero went right, broke through a stack of champions, captured the nearest Castle, and then took over my Rampart with the treasury. Then he got into a boat and set off for further exploration. I, keeping a safe distance from him, quietly took these castles for myself.
Meanwhile, Wind Moon visited the Black Tent, and Rogge got the opportunity to go to the "technical" hero Luna (known as Alice on the map) to give her the gargoyles (and to make her battle easier, I also threw in some griffins). For one gargoyle, she was allowed through the portal leading to the Green Tent. Waiting for the right moment, she passes through a Pandora's Box with a stack of titans and giants, which she defeats using "Fire Wall," and visits the Green Tent. But this action, like many others on this map, has a side effect: it frees another monstrous hero under a red flag, who then joins his fellows already roaming our lands.
Thus, Rogge has no choice but to flee his starting location. Opening the green pillar and breaking through the garrison with golems, he comes face to face with another turquoise hero named Karayan. He has 300 angels, and there's no way to break through him. It's also impossible to run away from him with such a burden. The only option is to sacrifice the army at a nearby altar, get two dragonflies, and then run from Karayan. After a couple of days of fleeing, Rogge finds himself at a sanctuary, and interesting things start happening to Karayan, which are worth discussing in more detail.
So, we have the second case where HD+ interferes with the gameplay. Only this time, everything is much worse. Reaching the place where Rogge is hiding, Karayan goes towards the Dragon Cliffs, kills the green dragons, and suddenly disappears! At first, I didn't pay attention to it, since the green hero who was supposed to kill our super Necromancer disappeared in a similar way at the very beginning. But the trick is that to progress further, we need to open a Guardian, the condition for which is defeating this very Karayan.
Here I rolled back a week again and started a series of crazy attempts to break Karayan. But even gathering all my troops, I couldn't not only defeat him but even kill at least a hundred angels. Spitting on this matter, I decided – let him disappear. Maybe he'll appear somewhere else with a different army where he can be defeated. In short, I sacrifice the army again, take two dragonflies, and run.
Karayan disappears again, and Rogge frees a heroine named Androni with 10 champions from prison and returns to the starting location to try to grab some troops from the castles, and most importantly, to grab at least a few archangels from the previously captured turquoise castle. Surprisingly, the easternmost Castle and the Rampart located below are still mine. None of the enemy heroes captured them for some reason. Also, before leaving, I left one angel in the eastern Castle, and it would be very handy to take it.
Meanwhile, underground, life goes on. It's the middle of month 3, and Wind Moon, along with Grigari, are wandering around the Necromancer location. Scouting some things, gathering others, slowly eliminating Necromancers to get parts of the COTUK, and generally feeling fine.
After playing like this for a virtual week or two, I still couldn't resist and looked at the first playthrough I found on YouTube to see how the scenario with Karayan should actually develop. And that's when I flared up for the last time. It turned out that if you play without HD+, Karayan doesn't disappear, and his army of 300 angels turns into 60 zealots and small additions of pikemen and griffins. Thus, a real possibility to defeat him appears. Realizing that I had absolutely no desire to replay it a hundred thousand times, and besides there was no guarantee that the glitch with Karayan wouldn't repeat in any other part of the map, I deleted all saves except the last one and quit.
02. ATTEMPT NO. 2
A couple of weeks later, after cooling down a bit, I still decided to return to this map and try to play a bit more. I disable HD+, let Karayan live, free Androni with 10 champions, and with some losses, break through Karayan. Androni takes the green dragon and the champions remaining after the battle with Karayan and goes to explore new lands. Rogge, in turn, returns back, and having managed to grab three archangels, runs to catch up with Androni.
Parallel to these events, Wind Moon fights off the third Necromancer and finally assembles the COTUK.
https://i.ibb.co/qpwrHbn/xiedu-01.jpg
https://i.ibb.co/YQz88pT/xiedu-02.jpg
Her mission in the dungeon is over for a while, and she, along with Grigari, can now safely scout what hasn't been scouted yet and collect what hasn't been collected yet.
Up top, Rogge, along with Androni, having gathered a hundred elves along the way and upgraded them at the Fort on the hill located slightly below, must break through the ranger Carmela. Our army is strong enough, the battle is not difficult, and after a few attempts, we finish it with almost no losses.
https://i.ibb.co/0KH0QWk/xiedu-03.jpg
By opening the Guardian after defeating Carmela, we can move further, and passing by a tempting-looking Rampart (which we can't capture), we reach two portals. Through one, we reach a prison where we free our new ally named Froya with 60 zealots, and through the other (one-way), our entire trio is sent to a territory that will become their main residence for a long time.
In the new place, the first thing we do is capture the Rampart, where we will recruit the main striking force of our army – elves, and then, crossing a small body of water, we capture the nearby Castle as well. In the Seer's Hut, Androni learns "Water Walk" (Froya already knows it), and now all three heroes can move freely between the castles.
The next task will be to break through a stack of gold dragons, for which we will later receive 70 champions, and then visit the Blue Tent.
03. THE BLUE TENT. COTUK. FIRST SKELETONS
Having scouted the Necromancer territory, Wind Moon discovers two things: a Green two-way portal, the path to which is blocked by Blue Border Gates, and a blue pillar, not far from one of the Necropolises. The Green portal is extremely important at this stage because it connects the underground location where Wind Moon is based with the surface location of Rogge. Therefore, our next goal is the Blue Tent. This is now a job for Rogge and Androni.
The Blue Tent is located slightly above our new Castle on a small fenced-off patch. You can only get there through a one-way portal, the path to which is blocked by Ancient Behemoths, and leaving is even harder – next to the tent stands a fairly strong hero with hundreds of pegasuses, and only he can open the pillar blocking the exit from this territory.
Well then, we break through the behemoths, take the 70 champions, and go to the Blue Tent. After the turquoise hero with pegasuses opens the passage, we chase him down and quickly dispatch him.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7upNvIwSKk0
Next, we open the blue pillar ourselves, capture the nearest Castle, buy out the decent population remaining in it, and wait for the brown hero who attacks the castle the next day.
After the battle with the brown hero, our next goal is the nearby green hero with ogres. We must take the Gloves of the Horseman from him. The Gloves are necessary for moving between locations because, to get from one location to another, besides passing through the Green portal, you also need to run along a fairly long water path with mushroom rings using "Water Walk." The distance between the mushrooms is such that only Rogge or Wind Moon can pass there, and only with the Gloves of the Horseman.
After defeating the green hero, we get the Gloves of the Horseman, give them to Rogge, and he can now run through the "river" with mushroom rings to the Green portal.
A short lyrical digression. If up to this point I played the map roughly the same way as most players, then some of my further actions slightly eased the playthrough for me. It didn't make the map simpler – the opponents remained essentially the same, but the conditions definitely became more comfortable. I don't know how consistent these actions are with the author's design, but it's quite possible that such options were also intended.
So, the first such action was using the COTUK to accumulate skeletons. Realizing that there was no way to get many skeletons on the underground location (you can't generate many from the microscopic stacks of imps scattered here and there), it was decided to transfer the COTUK to the surface, where in the upcoming battles they could be produced by the thousands.
I'll say right away, the skeletons on this map became a really good help for me. During this segment of the playthrough, they provided significant assistance in battles, and later, in several cases, became a source of gold and resources (for example, selling several thousand skeletons allowed me, at the right moment, to upgrade all my marksmen to snipers without much trouble and fight off the orange heroes coming through the portal).
The following video shows how the COTUK was delivered to the surface, and how Rogge received a second set of Gloves of the Horseman. The actions in the video start right from the moment the green hero with ogres was broken and the Gloves of the Horseman were obtained.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HvSxtoifkbc
So, opening the quest pillar to take the "Pendant of Death," we, as has become customary, release a strong brown hero, who will become the first supplier of a large batch of skeletons. We trigger morale on the elves in the first round and break him with almost no losses. A thousand skeletons in the bank. And at the same time, another hero takes the Castle from which he came.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SltettUJXOU
The next target is the gates with 4200 champions. An interesting feature of this battle is that the shooters, even considering the zeroed defense of the champions, don't have enough shots to shoot them all. To solve this problem, some players took crusaders, others summoned earth elementals. I only took shooters and dragonflies, and when the shooters ran out of ammo, I led the champions through two "Fire Walls" with the dragonfly for a while. For one successful pass, the stack of champions decreased by 18. This was quite enough to finish off the stack, which had just over a hundred champions left. I also tested and found workable the option with ghost dragons, which "aged" the champion stack before the shooters fired. If the aging didn't work, I resurrected the dragon with "Animate Dead" and tried again. In general, there are quite a few options for this battle.
https://i.ibb.co/0BRhKdF/xiedu-04.jpg
Using the field terrain for the first and only time (there's no other way to win there), I break through the champions and significantly increase the number of skeletons in my army.
After the gates are open, we take the quest artifact "Pendant of Life" and wait for a visit from another interesting hero with the strange name Bauhinia Bab. :D
This lady is interesting because she has no shooters at all, and of flying units, she only has a stack of 900 pegasuses. Initially, I thought "here's an easy win" and was very happy, assuming that defeating this lady would be no trouble at all. Easy peasy: random a start where her catapult doesn't break the wall in the first round; kill the pegasuses; break the catapult; and shoot the remaining stacks from behind the walls. In reality, this battle turned out to be one of the most time-consuming for me. I spent a whole evening on it before I could win with almost no losses.
Interestingly, it's relatively easy to beat her on the tile next to the lower Castle (61,88,0), where the battlefield has a pocket for a shooter (I saw this later in a playthrough on YouTube). But if you meet her in the castle, things aren't so simple. The problem is that at the first convenient opportunity, she teleports huge stacks of champions or unicorns into our castle, which immediately start destroying everything in sight.
Alright, we have a trump card – tactics. We gather all our troops into a pile at the top, wear down her pegasuses, and hypnotize them. We block our entire troop pile with the pegasuses and shoot the stacks standing behind the walls. But here's another ambush: realizing that teleporting the champions behind the wall has become useless, because access to my stacks is blocked by the hypnotized pegausus, this villain starts hitting my troops with Frost Ring, which, with her "Sphere of Permanence," instantly kills dozens of units across 4 stacks at once.
OK, through trial and error, I figure out that her second spell cast is Stone Skin (the first was Haste on the pegasuses), and if I counter this spell with Dispel, she will cast Stone Skin again every turn.
That would be fine, but there's another problem. She has 270+ mana, and I have a maximum of 240. Stone Skin and Dispel cost the same, so eventually, I run out of mana much earlier, immediately followed by teleported champions or unicorns and an automatic loss.
I can't increase my mana any further. Scratching my head, I decided I needed to somehow reduce her mana. There are no imps on my surface location, and below they aren't eager to join, so the simplest method remains – hit-and-run. But here, the gates left after the champions came to the rescue. I put 1 pegausus there to increase the cost of spells and brought 6 single wisps from the necro location. After a successfully fought battle where she cast three times and my wisps lasted 3 rounds, she had only 231 mana left out of 276. The mana advantage is now on my side, so I fight her off in the castle with almost no losses.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fNa6sW8hUs0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eN2onMCGCWg
So, the result of our actions on the surface was obtaining two quest artifacts: the "Pendant of Death" and the "Pendant of Life." Additionally, we now have stables, allowing not only "empty" heroes but also those carrying the entire army to move between locations. Thus, our further actions move underground, where for the "Pendant of Death" we get the "Animate Dead" spell, and the "Pendant of Life" opens the passage to the Brown Tent.
Along the way, we'll get rid of a couple of fairly strong Necromancers languishing behind a Black Pillar near one of our Necropolises. This, in turn, will allow Wind Moon to open a couple of Guardians, and in the Seer's Huts, she can improve her stats and also get 250 vampire lords.
04. THE BROWN TENT
Having gathered a rather impressive army (almost 4K skeletons alone) and obtained the very important "Animate Dead" spell at this stage, Rogge goes with the "Pendant of Life" to the Guardian, which opens the passage to the Brown Tent. But the passage is blocked not only by this quest pillar. Additionally, you need to break through a Necromancer with two decent stacks of knights.
Rogge has the Intelligence specialty and a mountain of mana. So I didn't bother with nullifying defense and killing her knights with my knights, shooters, or skeletons. I took only a dozen ghost dragons and 5 single wisps. I covered the field with Quicksand and, having the "Sphere of Permanence," simply shot her knights with Lightning Bolt. Cheap and effective. Along with the spirit, we knock the "Shield of the Dying" (Shield of the Damned) out of this lady and start slowly collecting the "Armor of the Damned."
https://i.ibb.co/Np4xHcf/xiedu-05.jpg
Then Rogge visits the Arena, breaks through the 600 neutral knights standing nearby (together with the skeletons from the previous battle, that's another +315), and visits the Seer's Huts, where he increases his Attack and Defense.
But before moving to the Brown Tent, we need to deal with a couple more Necromancers. Some months ago, I accidentally opened the Black pillar behind which they were sitting, and their armies seemed unbeatable to me. Now, Rogge with this amount of mana and this many skeletons deals with them easily and effortlessly. Moreover, in battles now, I have to think not about how to win, but how to ensure the enemy doesn't die too quickly. :D
https://i.ibb.co/vm4LGsY/xiedu-06.jpg
https://i.ibb.co/LhQfdVb/xiedu-07.jpg
The victory over these Necromancers (plus minor skirmishes along the way) increases the skeleton army to 5 thousand. For destroying the necros, Wind Luna receives a stat boost and 250 vampires. Now we can move to the Brown Tent.
As I learned later, visiting the Brown Tent becomes a problematic spot for many players, because next to it stands a very strong red hero named Sky Rangi with 140 angels, locked by a Black Border Guard. Removing the Black Guard allows us to reach the Brown Tent, but also releases this monster. Fighting him here makes little sense – he stands on cursed ground, and beating him without colossal losses is probably impossible.
The only option is to open this Black pillar, visit the tent, and quickly get out of there. But this action leads to very unfortunate consequences. Following us, the red hero also enters the Brown Tent, because on the other side, he is locked by Black Gates and has essentially nowhere else to go. This, in turn, allows all heroes under the red flag to open Brown pillars and pass through Brown Gates. And after a while, someone named Nicholas shows up on our surface location with a bunch of gold and fairy dragons.
Deciding that fighting such imbalanced fellows is a below-average pleasure, I took another action that made the further playthrough more comfortable and safer. Namely, I equipped Wind Moon with a strong army (including 5K skeletons), and she impudently positioned herself right on the Brown Tent. You Shall Not Pass! :D
And, as it turned out, Sky Rangi didn't attack her. He stood there like a stump, because on one side are the Black Gates, which he can't pass, and on the other is Wind Moon, whom he seems to fear.
Leaving Wind Moon to guard the Brown Tent, Rogge, with knights, vampires, and dragons, quickly runs to the surface and captures several gold mines guarded by legions of liches (replenishing the skeleton army after each victory), and also grabs the Boots of Speed.
After this, we need to let the red hero Sky Rangi pass through the Black Gates. We send one of our heroes down, and he releases another, even more terrifying red hero with 250 phoenixes named Thades onto the loose. Along the way, we take a decent population of vampires, knights, etc., liches from the lower purple castle. Next to this Thades is a Black Tent. He visits it, and now the first red hero with 140 angels can pass the Black Gates and goes for a walk without entering the Brown Tent.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-yHjgc0lhFg
In about a week, Sky Rangi reaches the nearest Necropolis, where Rogge is already waiting for him with all the troops. Considering that the red hero has three out of five walking stacks (crusaders, champions, and elementals), and only a stack of angels and a stack of zealots for shooting and flying, fighting him off in the castle is not very difficult.
https://i.ibb.co/mGHkH5q/xiedu-08.jpg
For defeating Sky Rangi, we get more skeletons, the freeloader Wind Moon once again improves her stats in the Seer's Huts, and we also get the opportunity to free from prison and add to our ranks a very strong level 58 hero named Wina (wait, didn't we kill her at the very beginning with our super Necromancer :D).
Be that as it may, there's nothing for us to do underground for now, and since we can now pass through the Brown Gates, it's time to explore what lies on the surface north of our domains.
05. FIRST SORTIE BEYOND THE BROWN GATES
So, slightly above the gates where the 4200 champions were, are the Violet Gates, which we can't pass through yet. But it's not difficult to "find" the camouflaged Brown Gates next to them, through which we can access a fairly extensive territory with several castles and other interesting things.
Immediately behind the gates is a Tower, locked by a Guardian that only Wind Moon can open. In the castle sits a not-very-strong hero with two incredibly fat stacks of beholders and their upgraded brethren. We open the passage and easily capture the castle (+800 skeletons)
It's especially pleasing that in the Mage Guild, we finally get the "Resurrection" spell. Now we can confidently involve elves, zealots, and champions in battles.
A very promising start, and not far off, we can see an Inferno, which would also be worth visiting. We break the hero, get another batch of skeletons, but it turns out that besides +1 to Spellpower, there's not much to gain there. Next to the castle, you can learn "Teleport," but this spell doesn't have much value yet.
Then we scout the territory a bit more, capture a Castle guarded by 3000 zealots, and also find and destroy a couple of heroes, Gemma and Rockefeller, hiding somewhere in the corners.
The previous opponents are frankly weak, and the battles with them are nothing special, but the final screenshots are traditionally attached.
https://i.ibb.co/pwYd8t1/xiedu-09.jpg
https://i.ibb.co/wJM86qY/xiedu-10.jpg
https://i.ibb.co/Br7cNnd/xiedu-11.jpg
https://i.ibb.co/n0Yg9Cx/xiedu-12.jpg
But before we can properly scout anything, we have to return because, a couple of weeks earlier, a purple hero with a huge army, codenamed "the swampman," was spotted near our domains, and the red hero Thades with 250 phoenixes has accumulated enough mana to make his first jump using DD. If the swampman doesn't pose an immediate threat yet, Thades needs the closest attention very soon.
Summing up the first sortie, we can say it was successful. We got "Resurrection" and increased the number of skeletons to 10.5 thousand in several battles.
06. THADES. CONTINUED SCOUTING
For a while, we are forced to return underground because the red hero named Thades has become active. He has a huge army of phoenixes and elementals, and what's worse, he has the "Dimension Door" spell. He got it from an event near his original spot in exchange for all his mana. So, he stands near the Violet castle for a while, patiently waiting until he accumulates enough mana to jump somewhere.
In the second half of month 7, he makes his first jump, and of course, he jumps straight to the nook where the Brown Tent is located. I don't like this turn of events, so I send Grigari there again to distract him. Thades jumps to the Brown Tent, but seeing Grigari nearby, he attacks him. Grigari buys him off for a pittance, Thades forgets about the tent and runs off in a completely different direction, and poor Nicholas is left stuck behind the Brown Border Guard.
After wandering around the vicinity a bit, Thades finally finds a well, after which he starts running and jumping around my Necropolises more actively. Moving along an intricate trajectory, by the end of month 7, he finally ends up next to one of my necro castles, where he decides to settle forever. Rogge, meanwhile, hurries to intercept him.
The battle with Thades is difficult on one hand, but on the other hand, it uses a semi-cheese strategy based on the stupid actions of the AI in a castle siege. As I later learned, players often use this strategy in sieges on this map. I had to figure it out on my own, and in this case, I used it, perhaps for the first time.
Something like this happens: His shooters first kill all my shooters and some other units, as far as their ammunition allows. By the time he runs out of ammo, almost all my "walking" units are still alive (champions, black knights, and almost all 10K skeletons). Then he sits in the castle and doesn't come out while I have no shooters. I use Destroyer Ray to lower the defense of the phoenixes and blue elementals and wait for him to burn his mana. He casts all sorts of nonsense on himself like Prayer, Anti-Magic, or Shield, which he himself dispels every 3-4 rounds. When his mana is gone, I restore the minimal losses among the skeletons, knights, and champions. I remove all his buffs and Slow him. I buff myself with various Haste and Bloodlust spells. I resurrect fifty zealots, and he flies out of the castle. 10K skeletons kill all 250 phoenixes with "zero" defense in one go, the champions and black knights also finish off the resurrected phoenixes and fae/elementals in one hit. Then I resurrect the vampires, and they, jumping into the castle, gradually finish off the remaining elementals there. In the end, I resurrect everyone except 1 dragon (to free up a slot for the next skeleton replenishment).
https://i.ibb.co/nRtrthL/xiedu-13.jpg
Having dealt with Thades, we open the Guardian and, after breaking through 4800 elementals in the battle for the Boots of Levitation (another +1.4K skeletons), we allow Wind Moon and Wina to learn the "Town Portal" spell. Now the game will go a bit faster, although I would have preferred Rogge to get Town Portal, since he is my main commander at this stage.
Underground, it becomes quiet again, and we can return to scouting the territory beyond the Brown Gates. I return to the last captured Castle and begin advancing east.
Meanwhile, the "swampman" has already reached my Rampart and captured it. This character is too tough, and it's too early to fight him. But then this stump did something very beneficial for me. After walking around my Rampart for about a week, he got into a boat to cross a small body of water and move towards my Castles. But the trick is that you can only land on the shores of this body of water in three places, so we trap him with two pits and one hero. That's it, he can't land anywhere now, so let him sit in the boat until better times.
Passing a bit to the right of the last captured Castle, we break through a stack of nagas and move towards a Tower, next to which stands the turquoise hero Vina.
https://i.ibb.co/Jr6QzRr/xiedu-14.jpg
Another simple battle (with a legion of skeletons, many battles become simple), after which we capture a Castle with a fully built Mage Guild. And finally, we get "Frenzy."
And slightly above this castle, the purple hero Sara Wenger (a strange name for a man with a beard) is wandering around. He has a strong army, but everyone except the efreet can be blinded, so the battle isn't very difficult either.
https://i.ibb.co/5Mkzg9x/xiedu-15.jpg
The nearby Rampart looks tempting, but the path to it is blocked by three Guardians. And a bit further is an Anti-Magic garrison. Rogge returns back for now, but the brown heroine Lentini with phoenixes and elementals follows him from the Anti-Magic garrison. We quickly run to the nearest castle, where fighting her off will be much easier than in the field.
https://i.ibb.co/8Pq7Gp8/xiedu-16.jpg
In the east, the further path is blocked by an Anti-Magic garrison for now, so we send a couple of secondary heroes to uncover the map where possible, while Rogge returns back to get a closer look at the green hero standing near our castles, who has long been an eyesore.
07. ANTI-MAGIC. THE "SWAMPMAN." ARMOR OF THE DAMNED
Before breaking through the Anti-Magic garrison in the east and exploring the new, snowy territories in the north, we need to finish some business in our native location.
First of all, we need to break the green hero with dragons. Most people beat him with elves, using the battlefield terrain, but I beat him simply: first, I killed the gold and green dragons with vampires, then finished off the crystal and rust dragons with elves.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j1Rf4VR1lZA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QXbXTyXiLzE
We take the Crown of the Dragon's Teeth, learn "Anti-Magic," and can start collecting the Armor of the Damned. We already have the Shield of the Dying, now we just need to get the remaining 3 parts from three Necromancers. Along the way, it wouldn't hurt to deal with the "swampman."
First, we go to the nearest Necromancer for the Skull Helmet. Another drawn-out siege and the artifact is ours.
https://i.ibb.co/BnX4HJs/xiedu-17.jpg
We head back and break the "swampman" on the way. A serious fellow, I must say. The army is much larger and the stats are significantly higher. Plus, the Golden Bow, the Badge against Mind Spells, "Teleport," which he uses to throw hydras and behemoths both into and out of the castle, "Clone," "Sacrifice," etc., etc. In short, a full set.
But we now have "Frenzy" and "Resurrection," and it's already quite possible to defeat him.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xtcnJdQCNNI
This battle was recorded later, purely as a demonstration. In the playthrough, I used slightly different troops, but the essence is almost the same. Instead of zealots and archangels, I had vampires and 18 devils. I destroyed the catapult with the devils and only used the vampires for blocking. Then the same mana drain with the "Slow-Dispel" combo. But that battle was a bit more interesting. In the end, he had 4 mana left, and with his last spell, he teleported a stack of behemoths into the castle, which, with one clumsy move, finished off the remnants of my black knights. I had to cast Slow and have all remaining surviving units flee behind the castle walls. While the behemoths stomped around inside the castle, I cast Quicksand a couple of times, and by running circles around the field with elves and skeletons, I slowly finished off his cows and hydras. Then I summoned fire elementals to open the gates and let the behemoths out. I returned the troops to the castle, resurrected all the fallen, and shot the behemoths.
https://i.ibb.co/7Yzwv19/xiedu-18.jpg
Then Rogge goes to the underground location again to fight two battles, as a result of which the location is completely cleared of enemies, and Rogge receives the two remaining parts of the Armor of the Damned.
Rogge fights off one necro while sitting in his own castle. To release the last one, a specialist in liches, we have to give up the COTUK. We won't be able to collect skeletons with it anymore, but firstly, there are already 21.5 thousand*, and secondly, their role is gradually diminishing. The opponents are becoming too tough even for this many skeletons, and resurrecting over 20 thousand in a battle is no longer possible.
Thus, without much regret, we part with the COTUK, release the last Necromancer from the castle, and kill him in the field. Having received the last artifact, we assemble the Armor of the Damned.
https://i.ibb.co/Xz44nvc/xiedu-19.jpg
https://i.ibb.co/SPkk5Yt/xiedu-20.jpg
*Looking ahead, I'll say that at my maximum, I had over 47 thousand skeletons. :D I farmed 21+ thousand with the COTUK, converted over 15 thousand from imps that joined in various places, and got about 10-11 thousand by buying up and converting all level 1 units from all castles.
08. NICHOLAS. FURTHER SCOUTING. "TOWN PORTAL" FOR EVERYONE
Unlike many other playthroughs, where as a result of the player's actions, numerous enemies were released and roamed wherever they pleased, complicating an already difficult existence, my playthrough up to this point was not particularly dynamic. Later on, the map becomes almost completely static. For the most part, opponents don't swarm me from all sides but patiently wait for me to come to them.
Confirmation of this is the battle with Nicholas. While in most cases, as a result of visiting the Brown Tent, he comes to the player's territory quite early, causing a lot of trouble, in my game, he is still standing behind the Brown Guard, waiting for me to come to him.
In the early stages, this opponent is very tough, and you can only defeat him using "magic" tiles with convenient terrain combined with rather intricate tactics. I crawled up to him only in the middle of month 9 (many players have already finished the map long before that time :D). Under the pressure of 21.5K skeletons and almost 1.3K elves, Nicholas capitulates after just a few minutes of battle.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3vuX6T3KiRw
Next, Wina, equipped with the Armor of the Damned, passes through the Anti-Magic garrison and reaches a Castle on the same day. She buys hundreds of marksmen and moves towards the Dungeon.
Note. It's best to pass through garrisons and open Guardians when we can reach the castle behind them on the same day. This way, we can capture the castle without a fight and buy out the troops that have spawned there. If you pass the garrison one day and only reach the castle the next, instead of occupying an unguarded castle and taking the population, you'll have to fight all that spawned population. Though experienced players already know this.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g2lRAigEgpQ
The siege of the Dungeon isn't so simple, but you can still quite quickly figure out the order in which to deal with the enemy stacks (reminded me of the final battle against Pephrokryl from Paragon). Moreover, most of the enemy stacks can be blinded. You can also use the "semi-cheese" siege strategy, but I don't really like those battles.
https://i.ibb.co/j3fpJHR/xiedu-21.jpg
As in previous cases, we again need to collect a "set" artifact, in this case, the Power of the Dragon Father. Some parts we picked up along the way, others we have to take from defeated enemies. The next in line is the hero sitting in the Rampart, next to which Nicholas was standing. A surprisingly easy battle. Did the author forget to give this hero some defensive artifact, or does my hero have too many marksmen? Be that as it may, there are no more brown heroes on the map, and we have acquired the Titan's Gladius and the Frozen Eye of the Dragon.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kNluuOGtW5s
Near the recently conquered castle is another one, which I circle like a cat around sour cream. But I can't get to it yet, because the Guardian requires an Elixir of Life, which I don't have. Later, I found out that one is lying next to a Dragon Utopia, but it's not very visible, and when I visited the Utopia for scouting purposes, I simply didn't notice it. So I had to later assemble it from pieces scattered in different places.
And since I can't capture the castle yet, it's time to scout what interesting things are in the snowy territories to the north. Several heroes are sent to scout and discover a Tower, a number of rather interesting artifacts, several Seer's Huts, and imps. LOTS OF IMPS. :D
Rogge and Wina capture the Tower and collect the artifacts, Grigari rushes to the Seer's Huts to get his share of goodies, and Wind Moon starts recruiting legions of imps. Sweeping the "snow" from east to west, she gathers 14 thousand of them, and Androni brings another thousand from the dungeon. All this rabble will be transformed into skeletons in the very near future. Additionally, all level 1 units in all castles are bought up, and now I have 43K skeletons.
Reaching the northwestern corner of the map, Rogge sees a Tower, the path to which is blocked by a Blue Guard, and moves north, where, after breaking through titans (and of course, not noticing the string for the Sniper's Bow lying right under his nose, what a blind man :smile35: ), he learns the "Summon Boat" spell. After sailing around a bit in the boat, he discovered another Tower, next to which stood fifty titans eager to join. But here's the problem: Rogge has no free slots, and he really doesn't want to throw away a fat stack of units. Rogge returns empty-handed.
Meanwhile, Wina, having searched the dungeon, collects the parts of the Elixir of Life and can now capture the Castle. Another suspiciously easy battle, and the Castle is captured.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BvUUgPIoUZM
The artifacts from the defeated hero are of no particular value, but the main reward awaits us in the Mage Guild. Finally, we get "Town Portal," and now all heroes can freely move between castles.
This concludes the first part (character limit). Therefore, the second part will be in the form of a comment.
I recently completed the well-known Chinese map Xiedu, and since my playthrough differed in places from how many other players played it, I decided to write about it. But before I begin, I'll make a few caveats.
First, I am not a very high-level player, let alone a pro or a hardcore player. I started playing Heroes again only a couple of years ago, and that was mostly out of nostalgia. Before that, the last time I played was back in the early 2000s. And even now, I don't play often, and in those couple of years, I've beaten maybe 15-20 maps of relatively low difficulty. Accordingly, I don't have a lot of experience in playing through complex maps or battles. I don't know many tricks, complex mechanics, game bugs, and other nuances well known to skilled players. I had to figure many things out on my own, and there are many I still don't know about to this day. Therefore, I would rate my level as a "solid amateur".
I played this map more out of curiosity, and besides, damn it, I had to try to beat a difficult Chinese map at least once in my life. The map, which many consider a masterpiece of mapmaking and which is one of the most famous among hardcore maps, was the best candidate for that role.
Second, I started the map without the slightest idea of what awaited me ahead. I had never watched or read any other players' playthroughs before and tried to minimize the use of the editor (I only looked into it mainly to clarify some details, but didn't examine anything globally). Accordingly, my playthrough was quite slow – over 12 months according to the in-game calendar. So if anyone is interested in a fast-paced playthrough, this is definitely not for you.
Third, reading various comments about the map, I concluded that during its playthrough, two things are highly recommended:
1) hit-and-run (the author gives a tavern relatively early, and also, closer to the final stretch, a full set of diplomatic artifacts);
2) using the special map tiles with very convenient battle terrain.
I decided, as much as possible, to play the map without using these tricks, pretending I had no idea about either hit-and-run (though I used this tactic back when I played in the 90s-2000s) or the "special" tiles (which I genuinely didn't know about). I'll say right away, if you play slowly and complete the map in 12+ months, it's entirely possible to beat it this way. If you keep a fast pace, then you definitely can't do without the aforementioned tricks.
Fourth, even before I started the map, I sometimes came across the opinion that this map puts the player in very strict constraints and punishes them during the playthrough for any attempt at "going off-script," and that you need to play it almost tile by tile, strictly following the author's design. Move right, move left – execution. That is fundamentally wrong. The author does set the direction for how the map is played, but this is common to almost all custom maps. The player moves from location to location, conquering territories and castles in the sequence set by the author, but their specific actions in these locations have a fairly high degree of variability. Below, I will describe how I played the map, and my actions in some cases differed significantly from the actions of other players (later I became familiar with other playthroughs in general terms).
And finally, the last thing. Recently, some kind person made a machine translation of the map into Russian. That's the version I played. The map plays fine, without bugs, crashes, or other "pleasant" surprises. Although I honestly admit, I barely read the messages. It was enough for me that they just looked like normal text, rather than being a set of some eye-straining squiggles.
Link to the "russified" version of the map https://heroesportal.net/maps/view/4333
01. THE BEGINNING
The description of the beginning will be somewhat chaotic because at one point I abandoned the map (more on that later). I deleted all saves except the last one and returned to it only a few weeks later. So I'll tell it from memory without pictures or videos.
True, I remember one thing clearly – in the initial stage, I had to replay an incredible number of times. This applied to individual battles that needed to be won with minimal losses, which, given the lack of "Resurrection" and considering that the enemy was much stronger, required a huge number of attempts. It also applied to certain segments of the playthrough. Sometimes I had to roll back days or even weeks and replay. To be fair, it should be noted that later on, I had to replay much less frequently.
So, at the start, we are given three heroes. Two of them are purely technical, and one is our main hero, who will be with us until the end.
The first "technical" hero is a very high-level Necromancer with thousands of bone dragons and ghost dragons. All he has to do is, on the first day, kill the hero Wina sitting in a Tower, and on the second day, peacefully fade into oblivion, being destroyed by an imbalanced green hero of incredibly high level coming from a portal.
It's worth noting that to follow the author's design precisely, this place must be played with HD+ disabled. Otherwise, you can cheat a little and save both the Necromancer with his huge army of dragons and the castle. I didn't know this when playing the map, so I also saved this hero. But upon learning later that this was incorrect, I never used either the hero or his troops – he just sat in the castle until the end of the game.
The second "technical" hero is Luna with the "Fire Wall" specialty. This hero remains inactive for quite a while and is only needed to visit the Green Tent at a certain moment, after first fighting a rather interesting battle against titans and giants. Her mission on the map ends there.
We start playing with a hero who, in the "russified" version, is named Rogge. My start was, to put it mildly, slow. For a whole week, I wandered around the starting location, collecting everything that could be collected and visiting everything that could be visited. Only on the 7th day did I crawl to my first castle on the starting respawn and free my second active hero from prison, named Wind Moon, with a dowry of 1 skeleton.
Having not the slightest idea of what I should do or where to go, for the next month and a half to two months, I, with two heroes, idly wandered around the starting location, collecting various useless junk like peasants or thieves along the way (assuming that all these folk would probably be needed somewhere, as is often the case on custom maps). During my wanderings, I discovered that we were surrounded by several castles locked by quest Guardians or strong stacks of champions, as well as several gates with garrisons. At first, I naively assumed that after a while I would be able to capture these castles, build an army from them, and show the enemies a thing or two. How wrong I was. :D
Another mistake was that in battles and in the few upgrade buildings, I only leveled up my main hero Rogge, while the lady named Wind Moon was exclusively engaged in collecting various roadside junk.
Also, during these month and a half, I repelled two attacks from fairly strong heroes. One of them came from behind the gates with a garrison on the left, and the other, with wyverns, came from the right side. In both cases, I fought them off while sitting in the castle, suffering only minor losses. Another hero, who had previously arrived by boat, was killed in the field after a while. Additionally, another Castle was captured, as well as a Rampart with a treasury, access to which was opened by one of the aforementioned heroes.
After that, there was a lull for a while, and as a result of exploring the area, I discovered that there was nowhere to go except down. Breaking through the gates with the garrison, we enter a small location with another Castle locked by a Guardian, and a Seer's Hut urgently demanding that the hero Wind Moon be brought there.
This is where I got frustrated for the first time. The thing is, this seer teaches the hero Wind Moon the "Water Walk" spell, which she needs to travel the water path to her new home. I was frustrated because I hadn't leveled up Wind Moon at all. She only had Logistics and Water Magic as secondary skills, and that's how she stayed. And to learn "Water Walk" without advanced Wisdom is impossible. Plus, it became clear that this lady would also need to be decently leveled up. In short, I had to roll back several weeks and more actively involve her in the gameplay.
When the calendar was already approaching the end of the second month, I finally reached the hero with a bunch of dwarves and cyclopes blocking the passage to the portal leading to the necro respawn. After breaking through him and sending the hastily leveled Wind Moon to the portal, I was surprised to discover that monsters started coming out of the castles that were previously locked, monsters so terrifying that just seeing them could cause psychological trauma.
It became clear that there was no way for the second hero (Rogge) to return back, because even if he ran at full speed to his first castle, he would hardly be able to slip past a very strong hero under a pink flag. And a few days later, an even more monstrous fellow sailed out of the turquoise castle. So I had to roll back almost a month again and replay the section.
Thus cutting off 1-2 weeks, I was able, in a more comfortable situation, to send Wind Moon to visit the Necromancers, while Rogge, with the entire army and the obsidian gargoyles picked up along the way (we'll need them later), managed to return to his castle.
Meanwhile, Wind Moon begins to settle into the Necromancer location, where she has a number of tasks to complete: visit the Black Tent; free a hero named Grigari from prison; collect the Cloak of the Undead King (COTUK), for which she must defeat three fairly strong Necromancers (taking one part of this assembled artifact from each); and also take over their remaining castles. I fought off all three with minimal or no losses while sitting in the central castle.
Rogge is not idle on the surface either. I waited for the turquoise hero to leave the neighboring castle, and after killing the 2400 crossbowmen left in the castle, I captured it. It had a Portal of Glory built. This step later brought me some dividends, but more on that later. The turquoise hero went right, broke through a stack of champions, captured the nearest Castle, and then took over my Rampart with the treasury. Then he got into a boat and set off for further exploration. I, keeping a safe distance from him, quietly took these castles for myself.
Meanwhile, Wind Moon visited the Black Tent, and Rogge got the opportunity to go to the "technical" hero Luna (known as Alice on the map) to give her the gargoyles (and to make her battle easier, I also threw in some griffins). For one gargoyle, she was allowed through the portal leading to the Green Tent. Waiting for the right moment, she passes through a Pandora's Box with a stack of titans and giants, which she defeats using "Fire Wall," and visits the Green Tent. But this action, like many others on this map, has a side effect: it frees another monstrous hero under a red flag, who then joins his fellows already roaming our lands.
Thus, Rogge has no choice but to flee his starting location. Opening the green pillar and breaking through the garrison with golems, he comes face to face with another turquoise hero named Karayan. He has 300 angels, and there's no way to break through him. It's also impossible to run away from him with such a burden. The only option is to sacrifice the army at a nearby altar, get two dragonflies, and then run from Karayan. After a couple of days of fleeing, Rogge finds himself at a sanctuary, and interesting things start happening to Karayan, which are worth discussing in more detail.
So, we have the second case where HD+ interferes with the gameplay. Only this time, everything is much worse. Reaching the place where Rogge is hiding, Karayan goes towards the Dragon Cliffs, kills the green dragons, and suddenly disappears! At first, I didn't pay attention to it, since the green hero who was supposed to kill our super Necromancer disappeared in a similar way at the very beginning. But the trick is that to progress further, we need to open a Guardian, the condition for which is defeating this very Karayan.
Here I rolled back a week again and started a series of crazy attempts to break Karayan. But even gathering all my troops, I couldn't not only defeat him but even kill at least a hundred angels. Spitting on this matter, I decided – let him disappear. Maybe he'll appear somewhere else with a different army where he can be defeated. In short, I sacrifice the army again, take two dragonflies, and run.
Karayan disappears again, and Rogge frees a heroine named Androni with 10 champions from prison and returns to the starting location to try to grab some troops from the castles, and most importantly, to grab at least a few archangels from the previously captured turquoise castle. Surprisingly, the easternmost Castle and the Rampart located below are still mine. None of the enemy heroes captured them for some reason. Also, before leaving, I left one angel in the eastern Castle, and it would be very handy to take it.
Meanwhile, underground, life goes on. It's the middle of month 3, and Wind Moon, along with Grigari, are wandering around the Necromancer location. Scouting some things, gathering others, slowly eliminating Necromancers to get parts of the COTUK, and generally feeling fine.
After playing like this for a virtual week or two, I still couldn't resist and looked at the first playthrough I found on YouTube to see how the scenario with Karayan should actually develop. And that's when I flared up for the last time. It turned out that if you play without HD+, Karayan doesn't disappear, and his army of 300 angels turns into 60 zealots and small additions of pikemen and griffins. Thus, a real possibility to defeat him appears. Realizing that I had absolutely no desire to replay it a hundred thousand times, and besides there was no guarantee that the glitch with Karayan wouldn't repeat in any other part of the map, I deleted all saves except the last one and quit.
02. ATTEMPT NO. 2
A couple of weeks later, after cooling down a bit, I still decided to return to this map and try to play a bit more. I disable HD+, let Karayan live, free Androni with 10 champions, and with some losses, break through Karayan. Androni takes the green dragon and the champions remaining after the battle with Karayan and goes to explore new lands. Rogge, in turn, returns back, and having managed to grab three archangels, runs to catch up with Androni.
Parallel to these events, Wind Moon fights off the third Necromancer and finally assembles the COTUK.
https://i.ibb.co/qpwrHbn/xiedu-01.jpg
https://i.ibb.co/YQz88pT/xiedu-02.jpg
Her mission in the dungeon is over for a while, and she, along with Grigari, can now safely scout what hasn't been scouted yet and collect what hasn't been collected yet.
Up top, Rogge, along with Androni, having gathered a hundred elves along the way and upgraded them at the Fort on the hill located slightly below, must break through the ranger Carmela. Our army is strong enough, the battle is not difficult, and after a few attempts, we finish it with almost no losses.
https://i.ibb.co/0KH0QWk/xiedu-03.jpg
By opening the Guardian after defeating Carmela, we can move further, and passing by a tempting-looking Rampart (which we can't capture), we reach two portals. Through one, we reach a prison where we free our new ally named Froya with 60 zealots, and through the other (one-way), our entire trio is sent to a territory that will become their main residence for a long time.
In the new place, the first thing we do is capture the Rampart, where we will recruit the main striking force of our army – elves, and then, crossing a small body of water, we capture the nearby Castle as well. In the Seer's Hut, Androni learns "Water Walk" (Froya already knows it), and now all three heroes can move freely between the castles.
The next task will be to break through a stack of gold dragons, for which we will later receive 70 champions, and then visit the Blue Tent.
03. THE BLUE TENT. COTUK. FIRST SKELETONS
Having scouted the Necromancer territory, Wind Moon discovers two things: a Green two-way portal, the path to which is blocked by Blue Border Gates, and a blue pillar, not far from one of the Necropolises. The Green portal is extremely important at this stage because it connects the underground location where Wind Moon is based with the surface location of Rogge. Therefore, our next goal is the Blue Tent. This is now a job for Rogge and Androni.
The Blue Tent is located slightly above our new Castle on a small fenced-off patch. You can only get there through a one-way portal, the path to which is blocked by Ancient Behemoths, and leaving is even harder – next to the tent stands a fairly strong hero with hundreds of pegasuses, and only he can open the pillar blocking the exit from this territory.
Well then, we break through the behemoths, take the 70 champions, and go to the Blue Tent. After the turquoise hero with pegasuses opens the passage, we chase him down and quickly dispatch him.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7upNvIwSKk0
Next, we open the blue pillar ourselves, capture the nearest Castle, buy out the decent population remaining in it, and wait for the brown hero who attacks the castle the next day.
After the battle with the brown hero, our next goal is the nearby green hero with ogres. We must take the Gloves of the Horseman from him. The Gloves are necessary for moving between locations because, to get from one location to another, besides passing through the Green portal, you also need to run along a fairly long water path with mushroom rings using "Water Walk." The distance between the mushrooms is such that only Rogge or Wind Moon can pass there, and only with the Gloves of the Horseman.
After defeating the green hero, we get the Gloves of the Horseman, give them to Rogge, and he can now run through the "river" with mushroom rings to the Green portal.
A short lyrical digression. If up to this point I played the map roughly the same way as most players, then some of my further actions slightly eased the playthrough for me. It didn't make the map simpler – the opponents remained essentially the same, but the conditions definitely became more comfortable. I don't know how consistent these actions are with the author's design, but it's quite possible that such options were also intended.
So, the first such action was using the COTUK to accumulate skeletons. Realizing that there was no way to get many skeletons on the underground location (you can't generate many from the microscopic stacks of imps scattered here and there), it was decided to transfer the COTUK to the surface, where in the upcoming battles they could be produced by the thousands.
I'll say right away, the skeletons on this map became a really good help for me. During this segment of the playthrough, they provided significant assistance in battles, and later, in several cases, became a source of gold and resources (for example, selling several thousand skeletons allowed me, at the right moment, to upgrade all my marksmen to snipers without much trouble and fight off the orange heroes coming through the portal).
The following video shows how the COTUK was delivered to the surface, and how Rogge received a second set of Gloves of the Horseman. The actions in the video start right from the moment the green hero with ogres was broken and the Gloves of the Horseman were obtained.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HvSxtoifkbc
So, opening the quest pillar to take the "Pendant of Death," we, as has become customary, release a strong brown hero, who will become the first supplier of a large batch of skeletons. We trigger morale on the elves in the first round and break him with almost no losses. A thousand skeletons in the bank. And at the same time, another hero takes the Castle from which he came.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SltettUJXOU
The next target is the gates with 4200 champions. An interesting feature of this battle is that the shooters, even considering the zeroed defense of the champions, don't have enough shots to shoot them all. To solve this problem, some players took crusaders, others summoned earth elementals. I only took shooters and dragonflies, and when the shooters ran out of ammo, I led the champions through two "Fire Walls" with the dragonfly for a while. For one successful pass, the stack of champions decreased by 18. This was quite enough to finish off the stack, which had just over a hundred champions left. I also tested and found workable the option with ghost dragons, which "aged" the champion stack before the shooters fired. If the aging didn't work, I resurrected the dragon with "Animate Dead" and tried again. In general, there are quite a few options for this battle.
https://i.ibb.co/0BRhKdF/xiedu-04.jpg
Using the field terrain for the first and only time (there's no other way to win there), I break through the champions and significantly increase the number of skeletons in my army.
After the gates are open, we take the quest artifact "Pendant of Life" and wait for a visit from another interesting hero with the strange name Bauhinia Bab. :D
This lady is interesting because she has no shooters at all, and of flying units, she only has a stack of 900 pegasuses. Initially, I thought "here's an easy win" and was very happy, assuming that defeating this lady would be no trouble at all. Easy peasy: random a start where her catapult doesn't break the wall in the first round; kill the pegasuses; break the catapult; and shoot the remaining stacks from behind the walls. In reality, this battle turned out to be one of the most time-consuming for me. I spent a whole evening on it before I could win with almost no losses.
Interestingly, it's relatively easy to beat her on the tile next to the lower Castle (61,88,0), where the battlefield has a pocket for a shooter (I saw this later in a playthrough on YouTube). But if you meet her in the castle, things aren't so simple. The problem is that at the first convenient opportunity, she teleports huge stacks of champions or unicorns into our castle, which immediately start destroying everything in sight.
Alright, we have a trump card – tactics. We gather all our troops into a pile at the top, wear down her pegasuses, and hypnotize them. We block our entire troop pile with the pegasuses and shoot the stacks standing behind the walls. But here's another ambush: realizing that teleporting the champions behind the wall has become useless, because access to my stacks is blocked by the hypnotized pegausus, this villain starts hitting my troops with Frost Ring, which, with her "Sphere of Permanence," instantly kills dozens of units across 4 stacks at once.
OK, through trial and error, I figure out that her second spell cast is Stone Skin (the first was Haste on the pegasuses), and if I counter this spell with Dispel, she will cast Stone Skin again every turn.
That would be fine, but there's another problem. She has 270+ mana, and I have a maximum of 240. Stone Skin and Dispel cost the same, so eventually, I run out of mana much earlier, immediately followed by teleported champions or unicorns and an automatic loss.
I can't increase my mana any further. Scratching my head, I decided I needed to somehow reduce her mana. There are no imps on my surface location, and below they aren't eager to join, so the simplest method remains – hit-and-run. But here, the gates left after the champions came to the rescue. I put 1 pegausus there to increase the cost of spells and brought 6 single wisps from the necro location. After a successfully fought battle where she cast three times and my wisps lasted 3 rounds, she had only 231 mana left out of 276. The mana advantage is now on my side, so I fight her off in the castle with almost no losses.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fNa6sW8hUs0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eN2onMCGCWg
So, the result of our actions on the surface was obtaining two quest artifacts: the "Pendant of Death" and the "Pendant of Life." Additionally, we now have stables, allowing not only "empty" heroes but also those carrying the entire army to move between locations. Thus, our further actions move underground, where for the "Pendant of Death" we get the "Animate Dead" spell, and the "Pendant of Life" opens the passage to the Brown Tent.
Along the way, we'll get rid of a couple of fairly strong Necromancers languishing behind a Black Pillar near one of our Necropolises. This, in turn, will allow Wind Moon to open a couple of Guardians, and in the Seer's Huts, she can improve her stats and also get 250 vampire lords.
04. THE BROWN TENT
Having gathered a rather impressive army (almost 4K skeletons alone) and obtained the very important "Animate Dead" spell at this stage, Rogge goes with the "Pendant of Life" to the Guardian, which opens the passage to the Brown Tent. But the passage is blocked not only by this quest pillar. Additionally, you need to break through a Necromancer with two decent stacks of knights.
Rogge has the Intelligence specialty and a mountain of mana. So I didn't bother with nullifying defense and killing her knights with my knights, shooters, or skeletons. I took only a dozen ghost dragons and 5 single wisps. I covered the field with Quicksand and, having the "Sphere of Permanence," simply shot her knights with Lightning Bolt. Cheap and effective. Along with the spirit, we knock the "Shield of the Dying" (Shield of the Damned) out of this lady and start slowly collecting the "Armor of the Damned."
https://i.ibb.co/Np4xHcf/xiedu-05.jpg
Then Rogge visits the Arena, breaks through the 600 neutral knights standing nearby (together with the skeletons from the previous battle, that's another +315), and visits the Seer's Huts, where he increases his Attack and Defense.
But before moving to the Brown Tent, we need to deal with a couple more Necromancers. Some months ago, I accidentally opened the Black pillar behind which they were sitting, and their armies seemed unbeatable to me. Now, Rogge with this amount of mana and this many skeletons deals with them easily and effortlessly. Moreover, in battles now, I have to think not about how to win, but how to ensure the enemy doesn't die too quickly. :D
https://i.ibb.co/vm4LGsY/xiedu-06.jpg
https://i.ibb.co/LhQfdVb/xiedu-07.jpg
The victory over these Necromancers (plus minor skirmishes along the way) increases the skeleton army to 5 thousand. For destroying the necros, Wind Luna receives a stat boost and 250 vampires. Now we can move to the Brown Tent.
As I learned later, visiting the Brown Tent becomes a problematic spot for many players, because next to it stands a very strong red hero named Sky Rangi with 140 angels, locked by a Black Border Guard. Removing the Black Guard allows us to reach the Brown Tent, but also releases this monster. Fighting him here makes little sense – he stands on cursed ground, and beating him without colossal losses is probably impossible.
The only option is to open this Black pillar, visit the tent, and quickly get out of there. But this action leads to very unfortunate consequences. Following us, the red hero also enters the Brown Tent, because on the other side, he is locked by Black Gates and has essentially nowhere else to go. This, in turn, allows all heroes under the red flag to open Brown pillars and pass through Brown Gates. And after a while, someone named Nicholas shows up on our surface location with a bunch of gold and fairy dragons.
Deciding that fighting such imbalanced fellows is a below-average pleasure, I took another action that made the further playthrough more comfortable and safer. Namely, I equipped Wind Moon with a strong army (including 5K skeletons), and she impudently positioned herself right on the Brown Tent. You Shall Not Pass! :D
And, as it turned out, Sky Rangi didn't attack her. He stood there like a stump, because on one side are the Black Gates, which he can't pass, and on the other is Wind Moon, whom he seems to fear.
Leaving Wind Moon to guard the Brown Tent, Rogge, with knights, vampires, and dragons, quickly runs to the surface and captures several gold mines guarded by legions of liches (replenishing the skeleton army after each victory), and also grabs the Boots of Speed.
After this, we need to let the red hero Sky Rangi pass through the Black Gates. We send one of our heroes down, and he releases another, even more terrifying red hero with 250 phoenixes named Thades onto the loose. Along the way, we take a decent population of vampires, knights, etc., liches from the lower purple castle. Next to this Thades is a Black Tent. He visits it, and now the first red hero with 140 angels can pass the Black Gates and goes for a walk without entering the Brown Tent.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-yHjgc0lhFg
In about a week, Sky Rangi reaches the nearest Necropolis, where Rogge is already waiting for him with all the troops. Considering that the red hero has three out of five walking stacks (crusaders, champions, and elementals), and only a stack of angels and a stack of zealots for shooting and flying, fighting him off in the castle is not very difficult.
https://i.ibb.co/mGHkH5q/xiedu-08.jpg
For defeating Sky Rangi, we get more skeletons, the freeloader Wind Moon once again improves her stats in the Seer's Huts, and we also get the opportunity to free from prison and add to our ranks a very strong level 58 hero named Wina (wait, didn't we kill her at the very beginning with our super Necromancer :D).
Be that as it may, there's nothing for us to do underground for now, and since we can now pass through the Brown Gates, it's time to explore what lies on the surface north of our domains.
05. FIRST SORTIE BEYOND THE BROWN GATES
So, slightly above the gates where the 4200 champions were, are the Violet Gates, which we can't pass through yet. But it's not difficult to "find" the camouflaged Brown Gates next to them, through which we can access a fairly extensive territory with several castles and other interesting things.
Immediately behind the gates is a Tower, locked by a Guardian that only Wind Moon can open. In the castle sits a not-very-strong hero with two incredibly fat stacks of beholders and their upgraded brethren. We open the passage and easily capture the castle (+800 skeletons)
It's especially pleasing that in the Mage Guild, we finally get the "Resurrection" spell. Now we can confidently involve elves, zealots, and champions in battles.
A very promising start, and not far off, we can see an Inferno, which would also be worth visiting. We break the hero, get another batch of skeletons, but it turns out that besides +1 to Spellpower, there's not much to gain there. Next to the castle, you can learn "Teleport," but this spell doesn't have much value yet.
Then we scout the territory a bit more, capture a Castle guarded by 3000 zealots, and also find and destroy a couple of heroes, Gemma and Rockefeller, hiding somewhere in the corners.
The previous opponents are frankly weak, and the battles with them are nothing special, but the final screenshots are traditionally attached.
https://i.ibb.co/pwYd8t1/xiedu-09.jpg
https://i.ibb.co/wJM86qY/xiedu-10.jpg
https://i.ibb.co/Br7cNnd/xiedu-11.jpg
https://i.ibb.co/n0Yg9Cx/xiedu-12.jpg
But before we can properly scout anything, we have to return because, a couple of weeks earlier, a purple hero with a huge army, codenamed "the swampman," was spotted near our domains, and the red hero Thades with 250 phoenixes has accumulated enough mana to make his first jump using DD. If the swampman doesn't pose an immediate threat yet, Thades needs the closest attention very soon.
Summing up the first sortie, we can say it was successful. We got "Resurrection" and increased the number of skeletons to 10.5 thousand in several battles.
06. THADES. CONTINUED SCOUTING
For a while, we are forced to return underground because the red hero named Thades has become active. He has a huge army of phoenixes and elementals, and what's worse, he has the "Dimension Door" spell. He got it from an event near his original spot in exchange for all his mana. So, he stands near the Violet castle for a while, patiently waiting until he accumulates enough mana to jump somewhere.
In the second half of month 7, he makes his first jump, and of course, he jumps straight to the nook where the Brown Tent is located. I don't like this turn of events, so I send Grigari there again to distract him. Thades jumps to the Brown Tent, but seeing Grigari nearby, he attacks him. Grigari buys him off for a pittance, Thades forgets about the tent and runs off in a completely different direction, and poor Nicholas is left stuck behind the Brown Border Guard.
After wandering around the vicinity a bit, Thades finally finds a well, after which he starts running and jumping around my Necropolises more actively. Moving along an intricate trajectory, by the end of month 7, he finally ends up next to one of my necro castles, where he decides to settle forever. Rogge, meanwhile, hurries to intercept him.
The battle with Thades is difficult on one hand, but on the other hand, it uses a semi-cheese strategy based on the stupid actions of the AI in a castle siege. As I later learned, players often use this strategy in sieges on this map. I had to figure it out on my own, and in this case, I used it, perhaps for the first time.
Something like this happens: His shooters first kill all my shooters and some other units, as far as their ammunition allows. By the time he runs out of ammo, almost all my "walking" units are still alive (champions, black knights, and almost all 10K skeletons). Then he sits in the castle and doesn't come out while I have no shooters. I use Destroyer Ray to lower the defense of the phoenixes and blue elementals and wait for him to burn his mana. He casts all sorts of nonsense on himself like Prayer, Anti-Magic, or Shield, which he himself dispels every 3-4 rounds. When his mana is gone, I restore the minimal losses among the skeletons, knights, and champions. I remove all his buffs and Slow him. I buff myself with various Haste and Bloodlust spells. I resurrect fifty zealots, and he flies out of the castle. 10K skeletons kill all 250 phoenixes with "zero" defense in one go, the champions and black knights also finish off the resurrected phoenixes and fae/elementals in one hit. Then I resurrect the vampires, and they, jumping into the castle, gradually finish off the remaining elementals there. In the end, I resurrect everyone except 1 dragon (to free up a slot for the next skeleton replenishment).
https://i.ibb.co/nRtrthL/xiedu-13.jpg
Having dealt with Thades, we open the Guardian and, after breaking through 4800 elementals in the battle for the Boots of Levitation (another +1.4K skeletons), we allow Wind Moon and Wina to learn the "Town Portal" spell. Now the game will go a bit faster, although I would have preferred Rogge to get Town Portal, since he is my main commander at this stage.
Underground, it becomes quiet again, and we can return to scouting the territory beyond the Brown Gates. I return to the last captured Castle and begin advancing east.
Meanwhile, the "swampman" has already reached my Rampart and captured it. This character is too tough, and it's too early to fight him. But then this stump did something very beneficial for me. After walking around my Rampart for about a week, he got into a boat to cross a small body of water and move towards my Castles. But the trick is that you can only land on the shores of this body of water in three places, so we trap him with two pits and one hero. That's it, he can't land anywhere now, so let him sit in the boat until better times.
Passing a bit to the right of the last captured Castle, we break through a stack of nagas and move towards a Tower, next to which stands the turquoise hero Vina.
https://i.ibb.co/Jr6QzRr/xiedu-14.jpg
Another simple battle (with a legion of skeletons, many battles become simple), after which we capture a Castle with a fully built Mage Guild. And finally, we get "Frenzy."
And slightly above this castle, the purple hero Sara Wenger (a strange name for a man with a beard) is wandering around. He has a strong army, but everyone except the efreet can be blinded, so the battle isn't very difficult either.
https://i.ibb.co/5Mkzg9x/xiedu-15.jpg
The nearby Rampart looks tempting, but the path to it is blocked by three Guardians. And a bit further is an Anti-Magic garrison. Rogge returns back for now, but the brown heroine Lentini with phoenixes and elementals follows him from the Anti-Magic garrison. We quickly run to the nearest castle, where fighting her off will be much easier than in the field.
https://i.ibb.co/8Pq7Gp8/xiedu-16.jpg
In the east, the further path is blocked by an Anti-Magic garrison for now, so we send a couple of secondary heroes to uncover the map where possible, while Rogge returns back to get a closer look at the green hero standing near our castles, who has long been an eyesore.
07. ANTI-MAGIC. THE "SWAMPMAN." ARMOR OF THE DAMNED
Before breaking through the Anti-Magic garrison in the east and exploring the new, snowy territories in the north, we need to finish some business in our native location.
First of all, we need to break the green hero with dragons. Most people beat him with elves, using the battlefield terrain, but I beat him simply: first, I killed the gold and green dragons with vampires, then finished off the crystal and rust dragons with elves.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j1Rf4VR1lZA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QXbXTyXiLzE
We take the Crown of the Dragon's Teeth, learn "Anti-Magic," and can start collecting the Armor of the Damned. We already have the Shield of the Dying, now we just need to get the remaining 3 parts from three Necromancers. Along the way, it wouldn't hurt to deal with the "swampman."
First, we go to the nearest Necromancer for the Skull Helmet. Another drawn-out siege and the artifact is ours.
https://i.ibb.co/BnX4HJs/xiedu-17.jpg
We head back and break the "swampman" on the way. A serious fellow, I must say. The army is much larger and the stats are significantly higher. Plus, the Golden Bow, the Badge against Mind Spells, "Teleport," which he uses to throw hydras and behemoths both into and out of the castle, "Clone," "Sacrifice," etc., etc. In short, a full set.
But we now have "Frenzy" and "Resurrection," and it's already quite possible to defeat him.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xtcnJdQCNNI
This battle was recorded later, purely as a demonstration. In the playthrough, I used slightly different troops, but the essence is almost the same. Instead of zealots and archangels, I had vampires and 18 devils. I destroyed the catapult with the devils and only used the vampires for blocking. Then the same mana drain with the "Slow-Dispel" combo. But that battle was a bit more interesting. In the end, he had 4 mana left, and with his last spell, he teleported a stack of behemoths into the castle, which, with one clumsy move, finished off the remnants of my black knights. I had to cast Slow and have all remaining surviving units flee behind the castle walls. While the behemoths stomped around inside the castle, I cast Quicksand a couple of times, and by running circles around the field with elves and skeletons, I slowly finished off his cows and hydras. Then I summoned fire elementals to open the gates and let the behemoths out. I returned the troops to the castle, resurrected all the fallen, and shot the behemoths.
https://i.ibb.co/7Yzwv19/xiedu-18.jpg
Then Rogge goes to the underground location again to fight two battles, as a result of which the location is completely cleared of enemies, and Rogge receives the two remaining parts of the Armor of the Damned.
Rogge fights off one necro while sitting in his own castle. To release the last one, a specialist in liches, we have to give up the COTUK. We won't be able to collect skeletons with it anymore, but firstly, there are already 21.5 thousand*, and secondly, their role is gradually diminishing. The opponents are becoming too tough even for this many skeletons, and resurrecting over 20 thousand in a battle is no longer possible.
Thus, without much regret, we part with the COTUK, release the last Necromancer from the castle, and kill him in the field. Having received the last artifact, we assemble the Armor of the Damned.
https://i.ibb.co/Xz44nvc/xiedu-19.jpg
https://i.ibb.co/SPkk5Yt/xiedu-20.jpg
*Looking ahead, I'll say that at my maximum, I had over 47 thousand skeletons. :D I farmed 21+ thousand with the COTUK, converted over 15 thousand from imps that joined in various places, and got about 10-11 thousand by buying up and converting all level 1 units from all castles.
08. NICHOLAS. FURTHER SCOUTING. "TOWN PORTAL" FOR EVERYONE
Unlike many other playthroughs, where as a result of the player's actions, numerous enemies were released and roamed wherever they pleased, complicating an already difficult existence, my playthrough up to this point was not particularly dynamic. Later on, the map becomes almost completely static. For the most part, opponents don't swarm me from all sides but patiently wait for me to come to them.
Confirmation of this is the battle with Nicholas. While in most cases, as a result of visiting the Brown Tent, he comes to the player's territory quite early, causing a lot of trouble, in my game, he is still standing behind the Brown Guard, waiting for me to come to him.
In the early stages, this opponent is very tough, and you can only defeat him using "magic" tiles with convenient terrain combined with rather intricate tactics. I crawled up to him only in the middle of month 9 (many players have already finished the map long before that time :D). Under the pressure of 21.5K skeletons and almost 1.3K elves, Nicholas capitulates after just a few minutes of battle.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3vuX6T3KiRw
Next, Wina, equipped with the Armor of the Damned, passes through the Anti-Magic garrison and reaches a Castle on the same day. She buys hundreds of marksmen and moves towards the Dungeon.
Note. It's best to pass through garrisons and open Guardians when we can reach the castle behind them on the same day. This way, we can capture the castle without a fight and buy out the troops that have spawned there. If you pass the garrison one day and only reach the castle the next, instead of occupying an unguarded castle and taking the population, you'll have to fight all that spawned population. Though experienced players already know this.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g2lRAigEgpQ
The siege of the Dungeon isn't so simple, but you can still quite quickly figure out the order in which to deal with the enemy stacks (reminded me of the final battle against Pephrokryl from Paragon). Moreover, most of the enemy stacks can be blinded. You can also use the "semi-cheese" siege strategy, but I don't really like those battles.
https://i.ibb.co/j3fpJHR/xiedu-21.jpg
As in previous cases, we again need to collect a "set" artifact, in this case, the Power of the Dragon Father. Some parts we picked up along the way, others we have to take from defeated enemies. The next in line is the hero sitting in the Rampart, next to which Nicholas was standing. A surprisingly easy battle. Did the author forget to give this hero some defensive artifact, or does my hero have too many marksmen? Be that as it may, there are no more brown heroes on the map, and we have acquired the Titan's Gladius and the Frozen Eye of the Dragon.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kNluuOGtW5s
Near the recently conquered castle is another one, which I circle like a cat around sour cream. But I can't get to it yet, because the Guardian requires an Elixir of Life, which I don't have. Later, I found out that one is lying next to a Dragon Utopia, but it's not very visible, and when I visited the Utopia for scouting purposes, I simply didn't notice it. So I had to later assemble it from pieces scattered in different places.
And since I can't capture the castle yet, it's time to scout what interesting things are in the snowy territories to the north. Several heroes are sent to scout and discover a Tower, a number of rather interesting artifacts, several Seer's Huts, and imps. LOTS OF IMPS. :D
Rogge and Wina capture the Tower and collect the artifacts, Grigari rushes to the Seer's Huts to get his share of goodies, and Wind Moon starts recruiting legions of imps. Sweeping the "snow" from east to west, she gathers 14 thousand of them, and Androni brings another thousand from the dungeon. All this rabble will be transformed into skeletons in the very near future. Additionally, all level 1 units in all castles are bought up, and now I have 43K skeletons.
Reaching the northwestern corner of the map, Rogge sees a Tower, the path to which is blocked by a Blue Guard, and moves north, where, after breaking through titans (and of course, not noticing the string for the Sniper's Bow lying right under his nose, what a blind man :smile35: ), he learns the "Summon Boat" spell. After sailing around a bit in the boat, he discovered another Tower, next to which stood fifty titans eager to join. But here's the problem: Rogge has no free slots, and he really doesn't want to throw away a fat stack of units. Rogge returns empty-handed.
Meanwhile, Wina, having searched the dungeon, collects the parts of the Elixir of Life and can now capture the Castle. Another suspiciously easy battle, and the Castle is captured.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BvUUgPIoUZM
The artifacts from the defeated hero are of no particular value, but the main reward awaits us in the Mage Guild. Finally, we get "Town Portal," and now all heroes can freely move between castles.
This concludes the first part (character limit). Therefore, the second part will be in the form of a comment.
