Posts from World selection.

Map Name: ChoiceOTW1
Map Type: Scenario
Two-Level Map: No
Number of Players: 2vs1vs1
Map Size: Large
Map Author: Ornstein Dragonslayer

Map Description: Emperor Regor ascended the Imperial throne. What was once a peaceful trading state has gradually transformed into the warlike Videss Empire. The Empire has begun a total expansion of its borders, and no one can restrain it. Not yet...
The Dark Elves are located far south of the Empire's borders, but as practice shows, their conquest is only a matter of time. The Dark Elf King sends his warlord, Talares, to the border Northern outpost – a point where the lands of four states converge: the Elven, Dark Elf, Videss Empire, and Demon realms. Your task is to find out why Regor started this, in your opinion, senseless war. To learn the motivation and, if possible, prevent this invasion.

From the Author: I would like to thank everyone involved in creating my map. First of all, our dear forum, as well as Ment, }{0TT@6bI4, and AlekseyS.
I also thank my friends who are not on the forum but helped me create some of the content! VampireMetallHead is the voice actor.
And, I hope I have time to participate in the Remix contest!

Installation: Unzip the archive, move the .h5m file to the Maps folder, and put the .pak file in the data folder.

Have a nice game!

Current map version: v0.97

0.91 - Fixed a bug where capturing cities did not lead to victory. If you have already started playing the old version, that's okay. Just know that if you capture all the Imperial cities, you win.
0.92 - Adjusted the "density" of the Elven territory. General Darlton arrives later, his army is reduced by ~20%. Sir Gilford arrives later, his army is reduced by ~20%. The garrison army at the first Imperial city is reduced by ~20%.
0.93 - Fixed a bug where the death of the main character did not lead to defeat. Now, the location of the three liches is revealed on the map after the cutscene.
0.94 - The AI of the Demon and Human factions has been changed so that they fight each other and pay less attention to the player and their ally (more testing is needed). The starting location has been expanded: several artifacts and altars with spells have been added in the area. Now, on Hero difficulty, the player does not start "naked." The armies of the first Demon and Imperial garrisons have been reduced. "Freezing Wind" has been banned.
0.95 - Human reinforcements have been removed. The second player has been strengthened. The fourth player has been weakened. A critical bug that caused the game to crash when loading/starting a week has been fixed. Now, all bosses are immune to magic. Now, Ensla has a name, as it should!
0.96 - Minor bugs fixed. Two additional native creature dwellings have been added to the starting location.
0.97 - Fixed errors in terrain passability; All enemy garrisons have been weakened by ~30%; bosses have been weakened by ~30%; the "Wall of Steel" spell has been banned; the "Freezing Wind" spell is available; more bonuses and artifacts have been added to the map, and a mentor has been added. The enemy hero in the final battle has been strengthened.

You can attach both the map and the pak archive to a single zip folder on the forum.

What are the difficulties with installing your map? Download the file, then rename it and install it in the data folder. Is there no simpler way?

It's incredibly complicated to install.

The map version has been updated to v0.92 – the changes are aimed at making the game more enjoyable and fixing some bugs. I look forward to your feedback. Have fun playing!

Overall, it's not bad. The cutscenes, bosses, and the general concept are good, along with the added spice of random crashes at the end of the week.

Overall, it's not bad. The cutscenes, bosses, and the general concept are good, with a little extra spice in the form of random crashes at the end of the week.

What kind of crashes are you talking about? I fixed everything! If it crashes at the beginning of the week, try playing differently the day before the crash. As a rule, this works. In any case, thank you for your feedback! I hope you found and completed all the secondary quests.

Added 1 hour 45 minutes ago
Those who have completed it, or are at least in the process, please let me know. Your impressions and opinions are important to me. Thank you!

Played for a month and quit. It felt uncomfortable being among knights with huge muscles and tons of hit points. My hero is level 13, but they are all level 20+, and how am I supposed to survive (there's no dark magic, and chaos is incomplete)? Also, when visiting the purple tent (regardless of which hero does it), my hero loses the dragon, and the quest is considered failed. Is this a bug or a feature? Question: did the author play through their own map?

I played for a month and then quit. It felt uncomfortable being among knights with huge muscles and tons of hit points. My hero is level 13, and they are all level 20 or higher, and how am I supposed to survive (there's no Dark Magic, and Chaos is incomplete)? Also, when visiting the purple tent (no matter which hero I use), my hero loses the dragon, and the quest is considered failed. Is this a bug or a feature? Question: did the author even play through their own map?

Thank you for your feedback. I would like to clarify - were you playing the latest version of the map? Yes, it's a feature - it's logical that if a condition is failed, then the quest is also failed. The question is, does the game end at that point? If not, then everything is fine.
Regarding the difficulty - do I understand correctly that you went through the northern path to the garrison in the first month and encountered resistance in the form of strong knights there? Can I hear your suggestions for improving the gameplay?

Added 1 hour 5 minutes ago
I also want to add that the map was not properly tested by anyone except me, so there may be such problems with the difficulty.

Walkthrough of the "Choice of Worlds" scenario (hero difficulty): https://youtu.be/7rvUoZMPLRk

Added 19 hours 16 minutes ago
The scenario wasn't very good; there are many terrain bugs (many areas are impassable, and some can be bypassed), the dialogues are overloaded with unnecessary words, and it's dark as pitch. There's no mentor. The main character turned out to be a fighter who relies on machines instead of magic. But he still managed to defeat a lot of enemies, despite the huge number of garrisons. The map could have been much more interesting, but it still needs to be refined. It's misleading (I don't remember where I read it) that "leaders are immune to magic"? And the dragon caused confusion at the beginning. It shouldn't say that the world will stop if he dies when they themselves set up his death. Thank you for the game.

There’s a chance that there are many issues specifically in the EWA version (since you played through it on that version, right?). Simply removing one “blocktiles” in the properties of the Christmas tree will open up all the Christmas trees on the map to your paths.

Thanks to the author for the map. The map is wonderful, and the voice acting is simply divine)
I'm attaching one of my last saves.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/11VnkP09 ... =sharing
It seems there are some bugs. I played 0.96 on 3.1 without any mods. I didn't see any reinforcements arriving for the humu and the demon, and they behaved quite passively. There are areas in the elf's lands that cannot be reached, and some kind of mage pyramid that is also inaccessible. The ship cannot be bought.
The Liches said nothing after everyone was defeated, as if nothing had happened (though I dealt with 1 first, then 3, then 2)
The vampire quest worked well, seemingly as intended. After the first victory at the crypt, there were no more battles, although the message was ambiguous; if there was supposed to be another fight there, who knows, but the quest ended and the reward was given.
It would be better to make the mage quest mandatory, otherwise you can finish the mission and miss a very high-quality voiced cinematic.
I also thought the ghost was bugged—he kept reviving, then just died pointlessly somehow (I thought there might be a secret where you place a nightmare horse or open gates with demons, basically blocking it some way like in the "Heart of the Night" map with the elementals). It's hard to implement that trick, of course, but I would have liked to see it here.
Maybe everything is great and I just encountered some bug.
Thanks to the author, the map is 100% quality; with the right build, it plays easily and with pleasure.

The map turned out to be convoluted, and the embellishments are all in the wrong direction. I've never liked the dark design of the map. The supposed benefit of the ally remains a mystery to me. He only creates unnecessary hustle and bustle and throws in minor annoyances for the player. The dialogues, in my opinion, are strange. And the quest distribution is as "obscure" as possible. None of the complaints are particularly serious, but it is this that creates an "unfriendly" atmosphere for the map. I disliked the main concept of the scenario even more. The Necromancer is denied access to half of the higher-level "darkness" and "chaos" spells. Even his staff was taken away. For some reason, they are forcing a "summoning" playstyle, which is completely unsuitable for the Warlock in this situation. The main character is sent to different corners of the map to gather reinforcements, thereby wasting precious time.

This contradicts the very spirit of the game, where speed and aggression are the keys to success. In the end, it turned out to be a "meat grinder" game, not magic versus might. The final hero can only oppose the player with a large number of troops; he doesn't want to cast any spells.
After struggling with the author's version, I restarted, took Lestat as the main character, and completed the map on "hero" difficulty in 35 days. The map gets a three out of five. After some refinement, it might turn out well.

P.S. The "holes" in the map are present regardless of the EWA mod. I played on a clean version of the game and encountered all the same shortcomings that I already wrote about. raspisnoy

Released patch 0.97, rebalanced the forces on the map, changed the landscape, and added a mentor. I hope the walkthrough will be more enjoyable.

Greetings!) I've completed this scenario and want to share my impressions. Overall, the map is good; based on general feel, I'd give it a 3.7 out of 5. I'll explain why I think so below, as well as what I did and how—anyway, let's dive in.

In my understanding, the map is divided into roughly two or three stages

1. This is simply the map we play on, as a map—as banal as that sounds, but the task is non-trivial: defeat the arrogant humans who are putting out everything and everyone...

2. Quests—which, despite perhaps being overly text-heavy and not appearing as additional quests per se (except for the quest with the hut and the mad mage), and of which there are roughly three; in my gameplay of this scenario, I completed them after leaving one main Knight in one Castle, and then calmly finished all these side-quests...

Everything in order...

Regarding our main objectives: "Vaishan" must survive and not lose our city. Right off the bat, I want to throw a stone at the author's garden, because this condition doesn't work; even though I tried not to give up the city, I somehow forgot to teleport into town and, out of curiosity, decided to see what would happen if the city were surrendered—and lo and behold, the game continues as if this objective isn't even active (installation conditions met, same client)



Not losing Asteria—no questions arose here, as it's a conditional analog to the company where we weren't supposed to lose Malassa's daughter; but unfortunately, as soon as we approach the strange crystals where liches are casting something, our "friend" is turned into a Bone Dragon. I actually feel sorry for her, because not only is this the only Tier 7 unit of our faction—and there won't be any more—but they took that one too. I thought, well, it's no big deal to smack one dragon, but it's not that simple here, as stats are tweaked and abilities are changed. No problems arose, though: Chaos + Ice Lord, and we just hit them on cooldown, and when the hunters can finish them off with a melee attack, we do. I thought, "Aha, so more surprises like this are hidden; I need to be on guard..."

Overall, there were almost no problems on the map, except for that zone behind the elf's castle where, as I understand it, you need a ship, but there isn't one and you can't summon one. Most likely, when Blue beat Green or vice versa, the only ship was lost, although I didn't notice if there was one initially...

It's convenient that right at the start in the tavern you can see who we'll be dealing with; jumping ahead, the woman is quite tough... Although it could be shown immediately what they did to her there...


Actually a serious opponent—the sum of stats being 123 alone makes her look tough—but fortunately, she sits in a dummy castle, and we'll return to her in more detail closer to the finale...

The main problem on the map was CRUISER (Laslo), whom I led in circles around the map for a long time, because by week 4-5 he is insurmountable and has quite a lot of one-hit meat. Fortunately, he's without logistics and doesn't always use full moves, so you can entertain him for quite a while. I'll put it this way: from time to time I tried to beat him with ГГ, but it didn't work; however, eventually, gritting my teeth and with losses that were unacceptable to me, he is taken out. After that, you can just chill and do whatever you want on the map, chasing other weak troublemakers away with your cockroaches... Especially when you have high-level Sinitar and Letos; not one cockroach with weekly growth will stand, as the bot's so-called Cores ran out. As such, the hero himself isn't very dangerous, but even though I was higher in level and stats, the amount of meat is quite difficult to surpass. I didn't scout Laslo himself because by the time of the battle, I had already visited the mentor—not that I changed anything drastically in the build, but just took mentorship to train cockroaches that would bite hard (Letos: Plague + crystals; Sinitar: enhanced Chain Lightning with fork)

At the time of the battle with Cruiser, my "Vaishan" looked like this (took mentorship later) - CP accordingly (I'll attach replays of failed and successful attempts)

 

Allies and demons—as I understand the design, this cruiser was supposed to wipe out the demon, wipe out the elf, and then come for us. Overall, he seemed to do that for a while; however, he didn't fully wipe out the demon but only captured one castle, leaving Morbos in the lower corner castle, which is also quite good. I struggled a bit with how to take him out to minimize losses, although it wasn't mandatory...



Presence of the demon and elf on the map—at first, one demon hero was running around; he moved closer to the human, but once Cruiser wiped him out, I didn't really notice him on the map anymore. I wish he had kept the cruiser occupied more. The elf, in turn, also occasionally distracted attention, although most often he just cleaned up everything I broke through—the main thing is to take the two mines first)) because otherwise, until they are wiped out, they'll be his)). But overall, he also distracted attention a bit and stole things we didn't manage to grab ourselves, which was a bit annoying, to be honest

Moving on to the quest part—overall, the idea with mini-bosses is quite interesting, especially the chain of tasks with the mage: we give him something, he gets a Necromount, and then he goes and resurrects two dragons. What a villain, scoundrel, rogue! We helped you, and this is how you treat us... Oh well

The first quest I started doing after clearing the map of irritants was the quest with the lost husband
- The idea is great, everything is described and told—maybe even too much. There's Ebba who jokingly said her husband is a weakling; you go to his mage friend they often drink with, and he gave him a book. He went and locked himself in a crypt and turned into a powerful vampire, whom (at this stage we easily beat) then we returned to the hut, thinking we needed to save him, but he had already healed himself. We laughed, sat around and drank, and got a decent set


- The chain with the rogue liches/sorcerers who perform obscenities with dragons (also good), but again, having such a level and army, you don't really feel them; nevertheless, it's cool


- And the one I liked most was with Artat, an old man who has nothing to give but would like to receive artifacts. First, we are met by ghosts (one of whom even shoots)—cool animation, by the way))



- Then the old man flew into a rage and said something like "here are two dragons, go and defeat them." It's cool that one has infinite invis? Or rather, he has at least 2-3 charges there?)) And accordingly, these are Logens and Astrida (who at the beginning talked about the second one being able to cast spells; if casting meant invisibility, then okay)


- And just as we've won, the old man goes: "Oops, I'm an OP phoenix now, I'll bend you all over and cleanse the lands of demons, elves, and humans, since you've come into my yard to establish your own rules..."


And for completing this chain, you get a tasty set of Sar Iss. If only I had the ring in the first month, everything would have been easier and faster; oh well, I wasn't in any hurry anyway

Time to summarize:
I liked the map; it seemed like a lot was slapped together, but it's actually fine. The only thing that bothered me is that some passages need to be searched for or stared at—or maybe a resource blocked the way and I didn't notice, hop, go around...
- Cool gorge with golems who just stand there watching while you walk along the path; then you kite a legion of golems with your 30 wagons. It takes a long time, but it's a good experience boost + a Tome of Power is lying there (I think)



- VOICE-ACTING IN CUTSCENES—it seems like a small thing, but it's pleasant. There aren't many scenes, but they are there. The only thing is that in the scene where we kill Weiss, the screaming peasants drown out the voice acting (yes, I know there's some mod to increase dialogue volume, but I don't have it installed)
- After the final victory, a little animation could have been thought up, because "won and won"
- By the final battle, my character looked like this (even though we don't have our own Tier 7 units, we have two to choose from: either Angels or Demons; we don't count elves since there's only one castle and those dragons aren't upgrades)


Despite a slight dip in stats, it's handled quite calmly (won on the first attempt, though at the end for fun I almost wiped myself out with a Lucky Armageddon), and accordingly between red boots and earth buffs
In the end, we have

Thanks to the author for this map; I will definitely play another work by this author) 
p.s. If it seems like there's too much league-style meat, the secret is simple: in the castle, a Hero with collection + almost all non-league units were fed into the pit, and it turned out to be around +10 wagons, +6 pigs. If I hadn't fed the angels as well and stopped feeding them later, there would have been more)