Posts from Paths of heroes... Auto-translated

Today, I am starting to publish a literary adaptation of an interesting, but little-known work in the Russian-speaking internet – The Path of Heroes. This work was written by Coyot in 1998, and the original was written in English, despite the author's Czech roots. I first saw this work in 2006 thanks to GreatGenius – he kindly provided me with both the original and the machine translation. I was immediately attracted by the incredibly "rich" language of the narrative, "seasoned" with "masterpieces" of machine translation. That's when the idea of a literary adaptation of the source was born. But! The deeper I delved into the source, the more I realized – WE NEED TO KEEP THE MACHINE TRANSLATION! Just translate individual words, but leave the STYLE – otherwise, that charm (hello to fans of the fourth Heroes game) that breathes LIFE into this work will be lost...

Hero's Path
A Guide containing all general tricks and rules that apply to all races in the second Heroes.
I. Exploring the area closest to the castle.
In most cases, it is very wise to buy at least one more hero besides your starting one. Of course, if you have a watchtower in front of your castle and can see from there that all paths are blocked by some stronger armies, and you only have a small space to explore, then a second hero will not be necessary... but still.
1. Main advantages of exploring with two heroes:
a. In the initial stage – exploring what is around the castle – you will usually benefit from having two heroes; with more positive heroes, development will be faster. This relates to capturing mines, resources, artifacts, and even the very fact of revealing the map. [More heroes can be used if your financial situation seems good and exploration is possible. These guys usually pay for themselves quite soon.]
b. Later in the game, when you assemble an operational force strong enough to go after your opponent, a second guy in supporting roles can be used for several things:
· taking care of resources, mines, and full exploration of conquered land (here, I often buy new heroes in conquered castles, because within a few days the money is returned in resources from captured mines.)
· holding reserve armies for your main hero
· can build up quite solid experience
· can defeat some of the roaming armies
· can take care of some minor enemy heroes/towns
2. How to choose your primary/secondary hero?
Except for the Necromancer, there is no need at all to use a hero corresponding to the castle class (and even with a necro castle, you should consider buying a hero of another type if there are no large quantities of skeleton stocks scattered around the map). How to make your choice?
A. Primary hero:
a. Knight
for both short and long tasks. Should definitely be chosen in cases where magic resources are very insufficient. In subsequent phases, knights also develop substantial skills in magic, but their main advantage is a very strong defense, closely followed by attack. Very good for armies based on walkers due to Ballistics and Leadership, but since they get Archery quite often, even operational forces based on shooters will be happy to be under the command of a knight.
b. Barbarian
for both short and long tasks. Should definitely be chosen in cases where magic resources are very insufficient. The barbarian's magic skills will remain small without artifacts. Their main advantage is definitely attack. Defense can remain surprisingly low for this hero classification. Excellent in rough terrain, they guarantee fast exploration and also staying ahead of your opponent (both offense and defense ;-)).
c. Sorceress
For short and temporary games. Their Navigation makes them a necessity for water maps. With excellent knowledge and good magic power, they are good at casting elemental magic in battle. If you manage to get some direct damage magic, they can achieve quick victories over strength-based opponents, but in the long run, they lose due to their own power stats if they happen not to get high-level spells (This is common for all magic heroes – and high-level spells – Berserk, Clone, and True Return, possibly global direct damage spells – but even in these cases, a sorceress is not it, due to insufficiently high magic power). Remarkably high knowledge is very important on longer trips into unexplored lands.
d. Warlock
If you are going to reach your opponents quickly and if their forces are weak, you can take a warlock and bet on spells. His early dominance in magic power with a slight positive tendency toward the attack skill allows him to teach the opponent lessons via direct damage spells found at the second level of the Wizard's guild, which can be built easily in most cases. In the long run, they lose to strong strength heroes with strong magical troops ;-)
e. Wizard
Being a good compromise between the Sorceress and the Warlock, their magic abilities are quite reliable, with a slight tendency toward defense. Comments apply to the two previous classes, keeping in mind that the wizard is worse than them in their primary qualities, yet better due to having fewer weak spots;-). In the long run, they lose to strong strength heroes.
f. Necromancer
They are of little use as main heroes with living armies. However, if there are substantial numbers of skeleton-providing low-level armies, it could pay off well to choose a necromancer. Within a few levels obtained from chests and gazebos (+ 1000 experience), his Necromancy skill should improve to Expert, and then comes the time to get some armies. Gaining more levels in attack/defense than other magic heroes, necromancers are not as vulnerable in battles while they still benefit from very strong spells. In the long run, they lose to strong strength heroes if their skeleton hordes are not in four-digit values – this depends heavily on the specific map.
To summarize and expand these comments on heroes, a few notes from my personal experience follow:
If you plan to use high-quality magic, make your main hero a spellcaster. However, if you plan a long-term campaign with huge involved armies, you should choose a knight or barbarian, depending on the chosen strategy, terrain, number of castles, and available unit types. On maps with easy terrain, in the presence of strong opponents nearby (and therefore a defensive strategy), many castles, and a lack of resources (and therefore weaker armies in not-so-large quantities), the knight is better, while a distant opponent, rough terrain, and numerous armies suit the barbarian.
Having a sorceress in sea-rich scenarios gives you a great advantage – by collecting resources, artifacts, and events before the opponent, you can quite possibly help yourself win the map.
The wizard's wisdom can be useful with some powerful spells, such as Berserk, which is the best way to use the enemy's own strength against them.
A necromancer can be justified if large numbers of roaming armies for creating skeletons are located nearby – recruited skeletons make excellent garrison troops.
My usual practice: hire a Barbarian (if I am not sure that I will need a knight to protect border castles), and concentrate experience on him. In many cases, I manage to get Wisdom, so I can use some good spells from captured castles. However, Knight heroes have a higher probability of acquiring wisdom, increasing magic power, and most importantly, knowledge.
The barbarian should also try to get Archery and possibly Ballistics, since shooters are not strong enough to rely on exclusively, especially against armies based by the opponent on shooters, such as Wizard or Sorceress.
This concept of relying on strength ultimately has only a few weak spots, but those do not apply to games against AI. The holes are Paralysis and especially Berserk. With such spells, a good spellcaster can kick your army. You must be careful with the application of magic. The only good remedy is those pendants that protect against them. Oh, well, in general, if the opponent makes a mistake and gives you the opportunity to dispel those spells, DO it! (Best when using Anti-Magic.)
Direct damage magic (perhaps except Armageddon) is not such a big threat because with large armies, the damage caused by them can be fully offset by favorable spells on your troops – for example, Bless on 30 crusaders gives an average of +300 damage, equal to casting Lightning at magic power 12; Mass Bless on a whole army gives even better results compared to Chain Lightning.
The only things I miss when they are in the game are making long trips using Dimension Door, but a) it doesn't always become possible, b) one way or another, after some dozens of games won by DDing, this thing becomes "drilling" (Lit. Ed. Note: great term, isn't it? Now it's called cheating. This is from the diplomacy series in the third heroes), since it spoils most author designs.
Note that these recommendations are valid for specific hero classes and concern general usage strategy when fighting other heroes. That is, it is naturally assumed you are fighting armies belonging to exactly a specific type of hero. All these strategies assume all those armies included in the battle (for pedants: five out of six possible, best choice under specific circumstances...). If there is any army absence, strategies must be reworked to reflect this. If an army is added (from other castle types or neutral troops), strategies must be reworked. Too many combinations arise that I am not going to consider.
Obtaining secondary skills:
Check the Path of the specific class to see which skills best suit your troops and strategies.
There are some general rules that can be followed. See the description of advanced skills below for most of them. Many of the skills are just generally good (Luck, Leadership), while others are case-specific (Mysticism, Wisdom, Logistics, Ballistics), where conditions cover anything from map size, number of castles, type of main hero, type of most used troops, amount of available resources, and all other things to terrain types.
Of course, the hero class is very important. That is, Leadership and Luck provide a much better advantage for Strength Heroes, whose unit damage ratings (which benefit from their skills) are generally high. On the other hand, for mage skills, such as Mysticism and Expert Wisdom – they are a necessity because they expand his strong features.

B. Secondary hero:
. Knight
Used mainly for defensive purposes – if you need a hero to command the castle garrison (and have no strong spells there), use a knight. For active use, there is nothing significantly good about him.
a. Barbarian
Can also be used for defense instead of a knight, but in rough terrain, he is an excellent resource collector – the one who runs between all weekly-available sources of something. If your main guy is a barbarian, try to make another accompany him on long trips, picking up all resources, etc. (If your backup guy cannot keep pace with the main one, he somewhat loses his importance in the two-hero strategy.)
b. Sorceress
Use whenever open sea is nearby – try to improve navigation quickly in gazebos, etc., and run out to pick up everything on the water before your opponents can do so. No other real use.
c. Warlock
Used in very early stages as an explorer. Leave him only with his gargoyles and let him help reveal the map. Try to get Expert Scouting to improve his work as soon as possible.
d. Wizard
No great use for. The only good thing is that the hero arrives linked with several boars and therefore can reach a good speed simply by diverting halflings.
e. Necromancer
Almost useless. Comes with slow parts and no specific good skill. However, if you have tons of peasants and other low-level skeleton-providing foam (Lit. Ed. Note: "foam"! Appreciate the language and style!) nearby, you can take a necro, use a few levels to improve necromancy, and then, before transporting one or two weeks of castle production to your main hero, beat these armies and use skeletons – either with the necro as his main troops or with the main hero as an addition to his striking force (if he has some leadership).
I personally prefer taking warlocks as secondary heroes if I don't need a barbarian (due to terrain) or if I need to get more troops for the primary hero when I take the same class (which is always offered in the first week). Why a warlock? Ideal for exploration – has Scouting, and very fast units at the start – can even split gargoyles with the main hero, thus giving me two fast explorers right at the beginning.

When your secondary heroes happen to gain levels, keep in mind that the truly important secondary skills are movement skills—Logistics, Pathfinding and Navigation (only when applicable), Scouting, and Economy.
Also remember that a two-hero strategy does not mean using ONLY two heroes, but AT LEAST two heroes. The larger the map, the more heroes can be used.
The so-called backup guy should get his share of experience. Especially later, when the main hero will need large amounts of experience to advance to the next level, it is usually better to give chests to the backup guy, because he will benefit from them much more. The only exception should be when the main guy desperately MUST upgrade some advanced skills.
The main goals of the backup guy are delivering reinforcements, killing minor enemies and roaming armies, and sometimes possibly softening enemy resistance, even at the cost of sacrifice.
If a secondary hero survives, he could often 'inherit' the main hero's entire army—especially if you happen to capture an enemy castle with some level 6 troops left inside unredeemed. In this case, the main hero buys all the big guys, and they often carry more firepower than his entire regular army. At this point, the backup guy becomes a kind of second main hero, and in these moments you truly appreciate that you already allowed him to gain some levels.
[Or, if he is still quite weak, you might find it reasonable to give HIM the dragons, which tend to have minimal losses, to grab some quick experience by defeating roaming armies, etc.—and swap armies later. This applies in cases where the main hero's army relies heavily on his skills, and a weak secondary guy would suffer many losses.]
There could be a set of 'tertiary' heroes who can take care of gathering resources, gold, and armies from weekly replenishing external structures (usually, one hero can do this easily), and to shuttle reinforcements to the front lines. Those guys don't need any experience, but if they can (if it doesn't mean HUGE delays)—visit gazebos and possibly trees of knowledge (if they are free), to try and get scouting, logistics, or economy.
3. Division of tasks between heroes:
The main hero should spend his time doing only things that number two cannot do himself. He usually fights armies, collecting artifacts and chests, while the latter usually take mines, picking up resources and exploring Witch huts. Of course, things like visiting gazebos and obtaining skills that increase maintenance funds are common. Another thing the second guy should do is explore trees of knowledge, because they are more valuable later in the game, and you don't want to waste their potential at the start.
4. Experience and development optimization:
. In witch huts you can get random Basic abilities and skills. [Random in the sense that you cannot know in advance which skill it will be, but each time a map is launched, the skill is set and remains the same for that game] Thus, the backup hero has one important role: If your main guy still has some empty slots for secondary skills, then his friend will check every witch hut and sacrifice his empty slots to find out what the hut has to offer.
A. Chests and other sources of experience. Since experience should provide benefit, and the level increases with levels already gained, it is quite obvious that if you have a hero with approximately 40000 experience and his backup guy, who has approximately 3000 only from gazebos, then whenever you encounter a treasure chest, you should take it with the second guy... Because getting another +1 skill for your main guy is usually not as good as getting approximately +6 for the same price... Well, sometimes you take them with the main guy because you desperately need some advanced skill to be upgraded... [Here I strongly recommend checking from time to time how far the hero has progressed toward the next level. Even with 100000 + experience points, a hero is sometimes only one chest away from the next level.
B. The same thing goes for roaming armies... If the backup guy can take them out (Lit. Ed. note: in previous and following cases I replaced this wonderful term—"take out"—but I'll leave it once for flavor!), let him do it and leave only high-defense targets for your main guy. There is one exception... If the main guy has a strong army, it is a good strategy to leave him with one empty stack while traveling across the landscape... (The backup guy will carry the fifth army in case it is needed for a castle siege or an attack on an enemy hero). This way, roaming armies can join you. So, if you happen to have a force strong enough to defeat a roaming army, approach those you would like to join you (or buy, having advanced/experienced diplomacy) with the main guy. If they join you, you can either use them immediately or give them to the backup guy if they don't fit the main guy's alignment, combat style, or speed. Those armies can then be used by the backup guy as forces to kill other roaming armies and cities for experience, and later possibly be left as garrisons in captured castles and cities (ogres and hydras are excellent for this purpose, because their high HP will either deter any weaker heroes from attacking your cities or, at least, cause some losses to enemy armies.)

C. Another comment about chests – always keep in mind that they are also a good source of GOLD! If you plan to rely on diplomacy or build very expensive structures, it is worth collecting gold with secondary heroes. D. Also, if your secondary hero is exploring a forbidden zone where you don't want your main hero to go (perhaps there is nothing important there except for a few chests, or he is in a hurry to something else), you could have the secondary hero collect gold or gain experience even in the early stages of the game, where the main hero could benefit from it, but it would take too much time. E. Demon caves are a bit tricky... If you enter and fight the demon's minions, usually about 10 earth elementals, after defeating them, you usually get 2500 gold. By refusing to fight them, you risk one of four possibilities (getting gold and 1000 exp, getting only experience, losing 2500 gold (or the hero, if you don't have 2500!), or getting a little gold and an artifact), which is generally much better. F. All other sources of experience and skills can be used by a large number of heroes (Temple, Stonehedge, Witch Hut, Mercenary Camp, Fortress, Arena, and the Tree of Knowledge, which has the same price for all heroes (decided at startup, it may be nothing, 10 gems, or 2000 gold)). In the case of the Tree of Knowledge not requiring any payment, level advancement can be done immediately (however, it is better to do this with reserve heroes first, because using the Tree of Knowledge before you already have about 50,000 experience is a real waste). G. The supposed location shows the Sirens – a good way to convert useless armies into experience points. [If you have tons of cash or only a few armies, you won't need to give them to a hero who has little experience and send him there. The Sirens will destroy some of his armies and reward him with experience equal to the total HP of the destroyed armies. Ideal for getting rid of golems, ogres, hydras, and other (usually useless) units. You can gain several levels for a novice hero. In general, this is not a method for frequent use, but sometimes it works well. And, sometimes it helps human players, because computer heroes sometimes visit the Sirens with their main armies and thus make your job of killing these heroes easier later.] 5. Artifacts Always take the time to sort through artifacts, as you have a limited number of slots for them... All artifacts that protect against magic have become important in the latest updated version – the AI has started using spells like Paralyze and Blind frequently. In older versions, it never did this, and those artifacts only wasted space. And, remember one thing – (Note from the Literary Editor: the following describes a rarely mentioned semi-bug. Since it is not in the game description, I apologize, but I have removed it.) So, give "extra" artifacts to a reserve hero, along with all artifacts that add resources or gold. This leaves artifacts that improve basic skills and abilities, morale, luck, and movement. And even when you are preparing to capture a strong enemy hero (preferably in his castle, so he cannot escape), think carefully about which artifacts your hero might be missing for that battle, so that you can get even better ones from the enemy. (You usually won't need magic artifacts with Knights/Barbarians, and sometimes defense/attack artifacts with Mages who plan to rely on their strong magic... Also, some morale and luck boosts can be skipped for this battle, not to mention movement artifacts.) Please get rid of unwanted artifacts by sacrificing a hero to the enemy [if you want to give an artifact to the enemy – a payment, an ugly mask, and hearts of ice and cold, depending on which spells you have ;-) (Note from the Literary Editor: you can also add "Cursed Fisbin" here. And there is no "heart of cold" – it means "heart of fire".)] or simply by dismissing him and hiring another. I often even hire a hero to be dismissed with negative items. NWC should have made negative artifacts stick to the hero..., as it was in the original HOMM. 6. Movement Rules The total movement points of your hero depend not only on his skills but also on his armies, and the difference is 4 movement points between very slow and very fast armies. (The slowest army always matters, in case you didn't realize that). So, leave hydras, ogres, gnomes, and possibly orcs and archers at home if you don't really need them. Extra movement points can often be the only difference between life and death, i.e., if you encounter an enemy hero with a large army during your exploration, and he starts right after you finish your turn. [It just occurred to me that this could be a good way to waste your opponent's time – as soon as the opponent wanders to the edge of your territory, be close enough to him to let him see you. But make sure your hero has very fast armies, perhaps logistics or artifacts that increase movement... and each time, end your turn just a few steps away from him... And thus run around the map, wasting the time of the opponent's powerful army...] 7. Also, always customize heroes for use! If you have a ship and vast seas to conquer, you can buy a sorceress, try to get her to level up to become an expert navigator, dismiss her gnomes, and then we set off. (The dismissed gnomes will not speed up her ships, but she will have two extra movement points on land – and those can often save her a whole day if she can collect resources and get into the boat all within one turn. The same goes for barbarians exploring deserts, swamps, etc. – we leave the orcs in the castle, try to become an expert scout.)

8. Brief overview of skill development.
Primary Skill Progression
Hero Level Attack Defense Spell Power Knowledge
Barbarian 2-9 55% 35% 5% 5%
Barbarian 10+ 30% 30% 20% 20%
Knight 2-9 35% 45% 10% 10%
Knight 10+ 25% 25% 25% 25%
Necromancer 2-9 15% 15% 35% 35%
Necromancer 10+ 25% 25% 25% 25%
Sorceress 2-9 10% 10% 30% 50%
Sorceress 10+ 20% 20% 30% 30%
Warlock 2-9 10% 10% 50% 30%
Warlock 10+ 20% 20% 30% 30%
Wizard 2-9 10% 10% 40% 40%
Wizard 10+ 20% 20% 30% 30%

Secondary Skill Progression
The higher the number, the higher the chance that the skill will be available for learning; the lower the number, the lower the chance that the skill will be available (0 means no chance)
Skill Barbarian Knight Necromancer Sorceress Warlock Wizard
Archery 3 2 1 3 1 1
Ballistics 3 4 3 3 3 3
Diplomacy 2 3 2 2 2 2
Eagle Eye 1 1 3 2 3 3
Finance 2 3 2 2 2 2
Leadership 3 5 0 1 1 2
Logistics 3 3 2 2 2 2
Luck 2 1 1 3 1 2
Mysticism 1 1 3 3 3 4
Navigation 3 2 2 4 2 2
Necromancy 0 0 5 0 1 0
Pathfinding 4 3 3 2 2 2
Scouting 4 2 1 1 4 2
Wisdom 1 2 4 4 5 5

Each hero has eight slots for secondary skills. Therefore, you must be picky and choose only those from which you will profit. The simple fact that your hero would benefit from a skill does not mean that you want to take it... There could always be more skills to benefit from. A good example would be a knight who is offered Advanced Leadership or Basic Archery. Новичок will grab archery, while an experienced player will stop here, think about waiting for wisdom/logistics with a free slot for them and therefore take the advanced skill. This waiting is generally possible in cases where the basic skill offered to you is not a rare skill for your hero, or in cases where you do not desperately need this skill right now.
· Ballistics: A necessity for an army based on ground units; in any scenario with many castles, it will save some losses for your vulnerable shooters... Or by destroying the enemy castle structures just to break passages for your armies to run inside and kill defense troops faster. Not very necessary for an army based on flyers/shooters, such as titan or dragon squads. But even shooters benefit from destroyed castle walls because the obstacle penalty is removed.
· Archery: Increased damage from ranged attacks is usually quite convenient if you do not have small shooting stacks or no shooters at all (i.e., a wizard, necromancer).
· Logistics: A necessity, except for small, sometimes medium-sized maps and scenarios with many islands.
· Pathfinding: Necessary when large deserts, swamps, or snow areas require exploration. Otherwise useless.
· Navigation: I probably don't need to tell you that you won't need it if there are no seas/rivers to explore, right?J)
· Necromancy: Not particularly interesting to use unless you can reach expert level and have large masses of cannon fodder like peasants. However, in the hands of a necromancer – it is a powerful weapon. Only warlocks can ever get basic necromancy ..., and the witch's hut never offers it.
· Mysticism: Very useful for long journeys without castles if you must use magic. The higher the "knowledge" value your hero has, the lower the need for the "mysticism" skill. (The need for the skill is much greater for a warlock/necromancer than for a sorceress, for example. Also, a knight/barbarian may consider taking this skill, especially in cases where they already know haste/slow spells and plan to use them often.)
· Wisdom: If you are not building a higher level wizard guild, you will not find much use for this skill; however, it is better to take it than other, worse skills, because someone might build guild levels for you (either in your cities or theirs). In large scenarios, even non-magical power knights/barbarians should take this skill - it provides access to spells in conquered castles and mass haste/slow or paralysis/berserk - spells that can significantly improve their combat effectiveness, not to mention obtaining Town Portal.
· Diplomacy: If you get this in the early stages, it can be very convenient, because with an expert level of this skill, you get a truly fair price for new troops. [And you can see how many there are before fighting them ... and let's be honest, between 'many' and 'many' THERE IS a difference; 20 and 40 ogre lords are definitely not the same easy bait. Several times advanced/expert diplomacy saved my life because I could avoid fighting a stack of great elves who would beat the shit out of my armies. (Lit. Editor's Note: I hesitated for quite a while whether to replace this eloquent expression. But I decided to leave itJ).)] I think that the total cost is always the same - the price you would have paid for the troops if you hired them, EXCLUDING magical resources!. Depending on the level, a diplomat gets 1/4, 1/2 or the entire army for the same price. You should check areas you have already explored to see if there are any troops you would like to have on your side (and if their number is not too high - I cannot remember the exact value, but they will offer to join for money only if your army is somewhat larger than theirs in terms of health points. (Lit. Editor's Note: actually no. It's not about the number of health points but the strength of the army: you must be at least twice as strong as the army joining via diplomacy.)) There is another important thing: this threshold for joining is lower than the size required for an army to be afraid to fight you (flee in terror) - in other words, if you have diplomacy and a free slot for joining (or a corresponding stack in your army), you can avoid fighting armies that would otherwise fight you, causing unpleasant losses, for example from very fast shooters or dangerous flying units.)
· Scouting: Useful for exploration, because you will be able to not only see resources and mines, but sometimes you can spot your opponent soon enough to run away from them or even see them without being seen.
· Eagle Eye: Learning spells from your opponent is a good thing, especially if you do not have enough resources to build your own magic guilds. But I personally prefer other skills and take this only when I have no better choice or know for sure that I will need it. (Offered Navigation on a land scenario – taking Eagle Eye would indeed be the lesser of two evils.)
· Finance: Having this skill at expert level is great, although there are better ones. Usually, I take it in the early stages if another skill is even worse, or if I am in desperate need of cash. All secondary/tertiary heroes should take this skill – only logistics or pathfinding are better where necessary – in case heroes must travel far, repeatedly and quickly. If you plan to rely on Diplomacy, you can take finance with the main hero if there is a free slot for it.
· Luck: Dealing double damage can never be a bad thingJ, but it's never something I can count on at a specific moment.
· Leadership: Can sometimes save you from great trouble and losses. I prefer this to Luck, since Leadership gives you more tactical advantages (you can allow the double damage to be split among different enemy squads).
My personal preference would be: Logistics, Pathfinding, Navigation, Leadership, Ballistics, Archery, Mysticism, Wisdom and then others. But if you get Diplomacy or Finance quite early, always take them instead of Eagle Eye or another, in some cases useless skill.
Diplomacy can prove extremely useful on all maps where there are not enough castles but gold is abundant. Especially with stronger armies, you will have an easy task in acquiring reinforcements among wandering armies.
In general, when deciding on a secondary skill, you should always take into account the specific conditions of that particular game. You will not need Finance if you have several gold-bearing bags. You will not need Diplomacy if you are ''in great need of gold or if there are only a few armies that would want to join you. You will not need Pathfinding on easy terrain. You will not need logistics on a Small map. You will not need luck with strong armies. Always remember that even if something convenient comes along, you DO NOT ALWAYS NEED it anyway.