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This thread will feature only the best walkthrough descriptions for tournament maps in Heroes 1, as found on www.heroesworld.ru!

1st place - player PROROCK

Good time of day to everyone!

Since my result turned out to be significantly better than the others, I simply had to create a description of my walkthrough.

My last tournament, in which I participated and won, was conquering all of Europe from the shores of Iceland. The map was a Giant Map (Forward Vikings XL), but I completed it in 14 days (which is more than 35 cities and 7 opponents).
The main strategy for conquest was to strike at Europe from the center.

Here, the tactics are quite logical and similar.

I. Breakthrough.
Goal: to break through the Yellow player's line of defense and break through to the depths of his defenses as quickly as possible.
Means:
1. The main Hero, without buying anyone in the Castle, runs to the border with the Yellow player.
2. A secondary Hero is hired, who collects resources.
3. We approach the border (Gargoyles) and hire 50 thieves.
4. The Yellow Hero, in his last moments, defeats the Gargoyle - we jump out from behind the bushes and kill him! :)
5. Another of his Heroes is in our field of vision, but it is NOT worth attacking him (he is 5 times weaker, but it is impossible to win him, because his strong magic knocks me down). The conclusion is one - forget about the Hero and run to his Castle for magic. It was like horse racing at the Hippodrome - we ran TOGETHER (side by side) nose to nose to his Castle. IT WAS FUNNY! He reaches the Castle first, buys a boat and gets into it. I am HAPPY, because it is already day 121 (for me, this is the beginning of the week, and for him, it is not yet).
6. We take the Castle, and with magic, we can easily kill the Hero on the boat, BUT...
I thought that it is not worth killing him because there are 2 possible scenarios: he will realize that his Castle has been taken away and he will land (because the boat would NOT interfere with me, and I could not afford my own); or he might risk taking the Blue player's Castle (which would undermine the last one).
7. He still chose the first option, which allowed me to keep the boat.

Result: We have 2 Castles and 3 Heroes, 2 ships, and a good springboard for further attack, and all this by day 8 (121)!

II. Two Fronts
Goal: to open two fronts in the direction of two potential opponents.
Means: Creating 4 mobile units.
1. We give the first Hero a weekly Castle growth bonus + Magic, but we leave all units in the Castle, one by one. And we send him to the Red player.
2. We put the second Hero (with Socres) on a ship without an army.
3. The resource collector approaches the Castle at this time and will defend/attack from land.
4. Later, we hire a 4th Hero in our home Castle and put him on a ship.

I went to the Red player immediately on day 121.
But I was afraid to go to the Blue player - it was already too late... day 122 + another day for landing - this is already the middle of the week (the least FAVORABLE time).
But there was a "Red Button" ready - a Hero on a ship!
There were not enough troops to simultaneously defend the Yellow Castle and attack the Blue Castle. A very strong Blue player was approaching me from the north at the time when I was planning to attack him from the south.
Gargoyles joined this Hero, and his army looked very impressive:
25 Gargoyles
15 Griffins
10 Archers
30 Peasants

I, in turn, had one of each (Druids, Elves, Goblins, Centaurs) + 45 Thieves + 30 Butterflies, which joined me.
And I decided that as soon as I repel his attack, I will immediately go on the offensive!
I gave the main forces to the Hero who was going to attack the Red player.

Result: We defend the newly conquered areas without the help of offensive forces and prepare additional positions for attack.

III. Counterattack
Goal: to switch from defense to offense and deliver a crushing blow to the enemy.
Means:
1. To fight the attacking enemy (the Blue Player), we had to create a "Kamikaze Hero" (Mage Sandro with an army of single units).
2. As soon as I repelled his attack, 2 of my Heroes met in the sea and, combining their armies into one, one of them landed on the shore of the Blue player. This entire operation took exactly one day after the DEFENSE! (This is what the "Red Button" means). It was day 127.
3. And then it's a matter of technique. Again, my favorite FIRST day of the week, on which I capture Castles.
4. On the Red player's front, everything is more than calm and without problems. 2 Castles have already been captured, and 1 village of the Red player remained (he no longer has Heroes!).
5. The Blue player has one Hero left, who is near his last village. We surround him from two sides, and it turns out that one Hero takes his Village, and the other manages to reach the Hero (all this happens SIMULTANEOUSLY in one day).
6. The Red player's village is also captured on THIS day - 133.

Result: Everything turned out smoothly and synchronously - on the last day, 2 villages and Heroes!
And I played only ONCE, replaying 10 times when fighting a very POWERFUL Blue player, but otherwise, everything turned out smoothly and without tension - EASILY!;)

One more tip:
When playing for speed, FORGET that you need to build something!!!
You need to take what you have and run FORWARD!

When playing to conquer Europe, I captured more than 35 Castles with creatures of levels 1-2!

The same is true here!
The only thing I built was OGRES - AND EVEN THEY WERE NOT NEEDED!
Of the creatures of level 4 and higher, I only saw Hydras, but after capturing his Castle, they were no longer needed!

I hope this information will be USEFUL to someone!
And I created it NOT for the purpose of completely copying my actions, but for the purpose of showing an example of a walkthrough of the map for speed.

SAVES:

Day 5
Day 6
Day 7
Day 8
Day 12
Day 14
Final save

Sincerely,
Prorock.

1st place player Zingel

So, let's begin.
Initial inspection of 101495 showed that the map consists of 4 islands. Access to the computer can only be achieved via teleports, which are reasonably well-guarded.
That's how inattentive I was.... once.

The first time is always a test run. Therefore, I slowly built up my Castle, raised an army, and gradually gathered all units on my island. It turned out that sprites, pikemen, and gargoyles join. A bit sparse, of course, but in principle, not bad.
After a month had passed, I finally attacked the portal guards. And quickly slaughtered them all. It turned out the computer has very good magic. Plus, it dawned on me that you can sail to the computer.
Summary: no point in over-building; it is necessary to capture the far left village as quickly as possible. Resources are generally sufficient, so there's no need to capture mines.
Subsequent attempts showed that the left village can be taken as early as day 5, but you still can't build it up during such a walkthrough — not enough wood and money. Therefore, there is no need to rush or force it. Furthermore, on top of everything, the Warlock builds the last level of his Tower only on his 11th day (for the player, it's already the 12th). No matter how many times I arrived early, the tower wasn't there! Once I even landed on the 8th day! But what's the point? The castle has a second-level tower, no dimension door. You can't beat the others quickly.
Further walkthroughs showed that the computers can be slaughtered on the second day after landing, assuming the tower is built. Therefore, imho, it's practically impossible to optimize the end; the winners will have the same result. Consequently, you need to build up your hero skillfully.
I fought and fought — 13 days in total. No faster. And so, I decide to try one more time, just in case the warlock finishes the tower before the minotaurs? Since the beginning allows the hero to mess around, I decide to capture some mines. I take the emerald mine. ….I land at the Warlock's on the 10th day; naturally, there is no tower. I see that I am short by 1 sulfur for building the last level of the tower. I reload, buy an additional hero who captures the sulfur mine. I build the tower. Yes!!! On my 11th day, I am at the computer's, the tower is complete, skills are decent. All that's left is to skillfully slaughter the scattered heroes. In 2 days — it's elementary!

And now, everything by the day.

1. I run my main hero closer to the stone mine, because without sprites there's nothing more to do! :)

2. I buy a barb. (Actually, at first, I wanted the main hero to be a barb. I just love them! :) But then it turned out that the barb takes the village 1 day later than the starting hero.) I shaman so that after the barb another barb appears with 5 orcs. 5 orcs are a necessary condition to subsequently slaughter the phoenixes with minimal losses of genies, and it'll be easier to get the first genies. I transfer troops to the knight, join the sprites. I give the slow units back. I run up with the knight.

3. I run the knight toward the emerald mine. I stop him within reach of the barb for the next turn. I buy a second barb so that a sorceress appears in the tavern. The optimal option, of course, is a sorceress with only sprites, but that's as it happens. I transfer troops from the second barb to the first, leaving 1 goblin. With the first barb, I run full speed toward the knight.

4. With the second barb, I run to the left chest. There are 2000 money there! Very useful :) I transfer the army from the first one to the knight. With the knight, I beat up the dwarves. And move in the direction of the lamp with genies.

5. With the first barb, I go to the external dwelling where the dwarves were. With the second — the chest, we move toward another chest (near the ogres). With the knight, I smash the ogres. At the skirmish there were 10 orcs, 42 goblins, 27 sprites, 5 archers, 48 pikemen. After the fray, what remained: 10 orcs, 17 goblins, 5 archers.

6. First barb: wood, mine, little chest, more wood. Second: little chest by the lower ogres, some gold, run to the stones. With the knight, I pick up pikemen and take the village. I build the castle. I buy the Main Sorceress. (I don't care who appeared next, because no one will be bought until the end of the week. But another sorceress appeared. I don't know what her name is for you; for me, her name consists of gibberish. My version of Heroes is from September 6, 1995. Naturally, there's no question of Russification. But! It always amused me that the traditionally Russian name Natasha belongs to a sorceress — a black woman! Kanigeme should have taken at least one Russian in the development team! :) ) With the sorceress, we take the troops from the knight, break through the ogres, and take the wood and gold mine.

7. With the first barb, we go on a voyage around the lava above, clearing resources. With the second, I go to meet the knight. The sorceress wipes out the pikemen and runs to the knight to hand over the crew. The knight pretends to be a tank and pushes toward the mercury mine.

8. With the knight, I beat the phoenixes. Having 10 orcs and 5 archers minimizes losses among the genies. That is, the first 2 phoenixes fly at the orcs from above and don't finish them all off (happens 1 out of 5 times), another 2 phoenixes fly to slaughter the archers, 1 phoenix flies to finish the orcs, 1 crashes into the genies. Pikemen try to stab the last phoenix. Boom. Here, the first phoenix kicks the bucket with the genies (-1), who in turn send the next stack of phoenixes to that same bucket. And it would have been fine, but one phoenix remained, which, damn it, kills another genie. But no matter, a crowd of pikemen pounces on this phoenix and stabs him to death. Meanwhile... Gem (why does she have such a stupid avatar? She appears as a crying, whimpering child) runs to study the summon boat spell (how cool! Did this happen by chance? Or did the map author actually plan this moment consciously? Just like others, for example, the amount of resources — just enough first for the castle, then for the dock with the boat, then for the tower!)

9. The knight wipes out the ogres (mercury), trolls (shield). The first barb cleared the upper resources and is heading toward the remaining ones — a bit of sulfur and a chest above the sea village. The second barb circles around the swamp, acting as a janitor. I build the shipyard and ship. The sorceress studies summon boat and at the lowest point reachable this turn, summons it and boards the deck. This is where one has to think about capturing sulfur. I buy a warlock in the castle (calculating that another warlock will appear after). I buy him 24 pikemen — just right for crushing sprites. This warlock runs to the sulfur mine.

10. The knight picks up the shield, gargoyle and transfers all assets to the arrived sorceress. The warlock crushes the sprites and captures the sulfur mine. (The barbs pick up remaining resources and drop out of the game; in principle, the warlock too, having done his job, can leave…). Gem lands on the upper part of the yellow computer's island. To the right are dragons, to the left stands a hefty guy with crowds of various monstrosities, including dwarves who just joined.

11. Here it is, the wonderful day of capture. To his misfortune, the enemy warlock decided to capture a village instead of defending his castle. Gem, without losses, uses genies and gargoyles to take out 3 hydras in the castle. The key Castle is mine! I build the last level of the Mag. Tower. I buy a warlock. He takes 7 genies from Gem and on foot pounces on that same tough yellow warlock. Using anti-magic, storm, and the natural power of genies, I wipe out the entire army of the enemy hero. A small trick with the portal and I reach the second yellow hero — a knight. 1 min and another portal and I am again next to Gem. I return the genies. Gem hands over a few sprites, a gargoyle, a pikeman, enters the city, learns magic, and jumps to the red's castle. She wipes out the hero in the city. Here, a warlock is taken. In the yellow's castle, 2 sorceresses are taken; they jump diagonally down-right. The warlock from the sorcerers' castle distributes among them his centaurs, their sprites, his gargoyles and pikemen from Gem. This is necessary to repel attacks by red heroes. So that there isn't an obvious weak link, and any of my sorceresses could beat the red heroes. However, as the future showed, no one decided to attack them. Gem jumps to the barb. On the way, she wipes out cyclops and takes a fat chest for experience. A couple of cells short of the castle.

12. During the turn transition, the last yellow hero ("Yellow, what are you doing?") is destroyed by my warlock left on his island. - YELLOW. Since no one attacked my temporary sorceresses, the warlock quickly takes the army from one — gives it to another, she jumps, kills the first red hero, returns the army to the other sorceress, who in a jump wipes out the last red. - RED. Gem takes the barb's castle. 2 warlocks are bought; one takes the genies and transfers them to the other, who barely reaches and wipes out the first blue barb. Gem jumps once (-barb), jumps a second time and finishes off the last computer hero (click hide FINISH) - BLUE. Victory!

2nd place player Kyle

First, we scout the map. What do we see? The main things are two lamps with genies and a third town leading to the sea. Consequently, the initial tactic is: "Join the genies as quickly as possible, capture the town leading to the sea, build a shipyard there, and set sail to the neighbors." Next, we find out that fairies join us at the quarry, gargoyles at the sawmill, and pikemen at the third town.

After landing near the Warlock and capturing the town, we discover that he (the Warlock) builds a magic tower quite quickly, which contains a full set of spells, namely: "Fireball", "Anti-Magic", "Storm", "Resurrection" and most importantly — "Dimension Door". Therefore, the main goal is to capture the Warlock's castle with the fully built magic tower as early as possible.

Furthermore, through several replays, we find out that he doesn't build the tower before his 10th day, meaning the town should be captured no earlier than the eleventh day (although it can be captured sooner).
After capturing this town, everything becomes very simple... hit&run rules!

In my version, by days, it looked like this:

Day 1:
We leave all troops in the town except for one peasant and run up for a chest of gold (henceforth all chests are taken only for gold, except for one, which I will write about separately).

Day 2:
We buy a Barbarian. He takes the army and runs up for the fairies, but doesn't quite reach them and stops near the Knight. The Knight "pokes" the Barbarian and takes one goblin from him, while giving the peasant to the Barbarian (this is so that the Knight can run faster). Then the Barbarian joins the fairies and heads toward the morale statue. And the Knight captures the mine and heads up for resources.

Day 3:
We buy another Barbarian and, catching up with the first one, transfer the army to him, except for one goblin. Then the second Barbarian heads to the swamp for gold. The Knight, having taken a chest, runs around the mountains for the next one.

Day 4:
Knight: takes a chest, then wood, and runs up for the next chest and takes it. Then he turns west for wood.
Barbarian №1: Visits the statue and runs to the "mushrooms" for luck.
Barbarian №2: Takes a chest by the mountains and heads toward the chest located at the bottom of the swamp.

Day 5:
Knight: takes lumber and turns south for the next portion of lumber.
Barbarian №1: visits luck, then attacks the ogres and defeats them.
Barbarian №2: Takes a chest and runs to the next one, which is near the ogres in the swamp.

Day 6:
Knight: Having picked up lumber, he runs to the lamp and buys genies.
Barbarian №1: poking the Knight, takes the genies from him and runs to the pikemen guarding the town; seeing the genies, they quickly decide to join the victorious army.
Barbarian №2: picks up a chest, then a pile of gold, and heads east for diamonds.

Day 7:
Knight: Runs as fast as he can to the castle and picks up a chest, opening the way for the Barbarian, and takes all troops from the latter except for the genies.
Barbarian №1: Quickly breaking the town's resistance, captures it and immediately heads down. There he has to fight off pikemen who guard the second lamp.
Barbarian №2: having captured diamonds as a souvenir, heads west for a chest; taking it, he turns again and goes east.
In the captured town, we immediately erect a castle and buy a sorceress in it.
Sorceress №1: Giving the dwarves to the Knight for safekeeping and taking the remaining fairies for herself, she heads to the gazebo where she increases her level.

Day 8:
A shipyard is built in the castle and a boat is bought.
Knight: realizing that he suddenly has many troops, immediately rushes to perform deeds, namely captures the gold mine (killing ogres along the way), and having grabbed lumber, heads for the pikemen who guard a chest and sulfur.
Barbarian №1: after buying genies and seeing a beautiful girl nearby, decided to exchange... he took the fairies for himself and gave her a whole genie. And he rode off, inspired, to further deeds, namely down to the swamp to get the shield.
Barbarian №2: Seeing the beautiful fairies with his comrade, decided that he was more worthy of them and, rushing at Barbarian №1, took them. And he rode in the direction of the sawmill.
Sorceress №1: Ran to the Sanctuary and, having studied the "Summon Boat" spell there, decided to use it immediately. Having summoned a boat, she loaded herself into it.

Day 9:
Knight: In a stubborn struggle with the pikemen, he finally prevails, and having taken the resources, heads toward the diamond mine.
Barbarian №1: Attacking and defeating the ogres, takes the shield and heads to the sawmill; joining gargoyles there, he meets Barbarian №2, who was tormented by conscience... and accepting the fairies from him, decides to take a walk along the shore and there, again, meets a beautiful sorceress! This time he cannot resist and tries to win her favor with gifts. In the end, he is left with one fairy. And he no longer participates in our story.....
Barbarian №2: Conscience forced him to return the fairies. After that, he captured the sawmill and headed for a chest of gold.
Sorceress №1: Decided to swim a bit and sailed down, skirting the shore. There she again met an old acquaintance, who gave her all the genies, fairies, and the shield.

Day 10:
Knight: still running toward the mine.
Barbarian №2: Takes the chest and no longer participates in our story.....
Sorceress №1: decides to see overseas countries, and therefore lands near the Warlock's castle.

Day 11:
Knight: Finally reaches the mine, breaks through the dwarves, captures the mine, and collects nearby resources. And he no longer participates in our story.....
Sorceress №1: Looking around, decides to drop by the nearby town. But for some reason, she is not welcome there... But she didn't panic and, sending her troops into attack, captures the town.

• In the castle, Warlock №1 is bought; he takes all the army from Sorceress №1 and jumps south, where he meets some rude person... well, as they say, one word led to another... in short, the rude person is no more. In a state of distress, he jumps back to the town and, leaving all troops except for one gargoyle, heads southwest toward the second town (in hopes of finding peace).

• Next, Warlock №2 is bought; he takes the army and jumps to the elven castle, but he is not let in there either... some kind of pass is required... without hesitation, he captures this castle.

• Next, Warlock №3 is bought; he also decides to go on a journey, but this time north to the Barbarians, hoping that they will be kinder than the rest... He jumps first into elven territory (near the phoenixes), where Warlock №2, seeing his comrade, decided to wish him a safe journey and for good measure loaded him with genies, gargoyles, and the shield... just in case...

• Warlock №3 then jumps to the Barbarians... but guess what... he is not welcome there either... what bad luck... consequently, the barbarian castle also comes under our control. But during the battle, nearby cyclopes started picking on Warlock №3, and in a burst of righteous anger, he slaughtered them all... and noticing a chest nearby, took it, but distributed the gold to the troops as pay (i.e., the chest was taken for experience).

• Next, Sorceress №2 is bought; seeing how everyone around is mean, she decides (with one gargoyle) to go to a monastery. At the same time, someone told her that the monastery is in the far north, on Barbarian territory... and she immediately headed there.

• Sorceress №1: after everything that happened, finally decides to drop by the castle and see the sights...
Day 12:

• Warlock №1, seeing a beautiful lady near him, decides to get acquainted with her, but she turned out to be in a bad mood... In complete despair, he decides to commit suicide and summons a storm... the beautiful lady perishes along with him... for company... (by the way, this moment was replayed several times, because this lady has dwarves... and those devils have a chance that magic will not affect them....)

• Next, Warlock №4 is bought (it immediately seemed to me that he looks like a Japanese person); for some reason, he also decides to go to the monastery... but he didn't go north, but south... and there he met a Barbarian, and for some reason, he didn't like the Barbarian... I don't know why, but Warlock №4 imagined himself a kamikaze and... the Barbarian was gone... (that's it, yellow has vanished into oblivion....)

• Sorceress №1: having inspected everything at the Warlock's, decided to travel through beautiful elven places... but as you have already guessed, she met another beauty there, by the way, a prettier one... and she decided to get rid of her rival... which she managed to do.

• Warlock №2 felt like the owner of the castle... and he liked it. But not so fast, the old owner is running toward the castle... And Warlock №2 had nothing left to do but explain to him (the former owner) that the castle has already passed into other hands, and in general, one should take better care of things... (that's it, red has vanished into oblivion....)

• Sorceress №2 finally reached the far north and... there was no monastery there.., but instead some dirty knight (he probably got lost here and went wild), who started looking at Sorceress №2 strangely, and to be safe, she decided to teach him a lesson... but she got carried away and didn't notice when he passed away...

• Warlock №3 saw a beautiful lady with a nose ring; this interested him, and he decided to try putting a nose ring on himself too. But as everyone knows, without proper practice, this is a very painful procedure... And he thought that he needed to ask this lady for advice on how to properly put in a ring... But put yourself in the shoes of this lady... a person with a torn nose approaches you, covered in blood, and wants something... She was naturally frightened and blasted him with lightning... After which he felt insulted and... well, I think the end is clear to you.... (that's it, blue has vanished into oblivion....)

3rd place VDV_forever

I did not choose this map by chance.
After reviewing practically all the maps I have, I came to the conclusion that only a few are acceptable for a tournament. From those few, I chose the map called NEIGHBORS.

Creating a new map requires an absolutely colossal amount of time as well as great patience, since the map editor in Heroes 1 is not one that is pleasant to work with. After several attempts, I temporarily abandoned this idea.

I cannot borrow maps from other Internet resources, and conducting tournaments on them is even more out of the question! But thanks to our Alex_R, this issue has been resolved, for which I am very grateful!

Now directly about my walkthrough:

This map can be completed in 3 different ways, using different completion tactics!

The 1st method, called "passage through portals," was discarded immediately, as this strategy ensures victory in the best case after 1 game month, which is unacceptable to me.

The 2nd method, called "Magic of my Castle," received my approval. In fact, it was according to this strategy that I completed this map twice.

The 3rd method, called "Just a boat," proved to be the fastest and most optimal for this tournament map.

1st run

Development proceeded as follows.

All resources, villages, and mines were captured, and all genies in the lamp were taken! The 4th level of magic was built on day 16! Accordingly, having spells such as portal and Armageddon at my disposal, capturing the dragon castle is not much trouble, nor is crushing the enemy on the same day by flying Sorceresses and Wizards from two castles!

But during the first run, this failed because I was exactly 1 step short of the last computer Knight. Then I made it so that the opponent's last hero attacked my castle upon turn transition. But to my surprise, in the end, the final table showed me a result of 17 days!

Because of this, I had to struggle a bit with day 16, combining various situations with different heroes (using Armageddon with dwarves, in particular). In the end, all opponent heroes were defeated on day 16, as evidenced by the final table at the end.

2nd run

For the most part, it did not differ from the first and consisted of the fastest collection of the required number of resources.
To this end, all heroes were thrown into a high-speed capture of mines, followed by resource collection!
I calculated that the minimum time for resource collection, with simultaneous magic construction in the castle, is 14 days! But this is achieved only if one neglects buying 1 genie (-1 gemstone).

Unfortunately, acting according to this strategy, it was not possible to defeat the opponent on the same day, as he is located at a considerable distance and reaching him, even with a Sorceress, did not seem possible. Therefore, the second run took 15 days, which seemed like a pretty good result to me (considering all time expenditures!)

3rd run

After the second run, I discovered that this map could be completed even faster. Using the obvious and only correct high-speed passage – by boat!

I will say right away that it is possible to complete this map in 12 game days, but on condition that the computer builds the 4th level of magic instead of minotaurs on day 12, or if I build the 4th level of magic in its castle with my own money. Unfortunately, while experimenting, I failed to implement the aforementioned scenario and after a short time gave up on further experiments.
This method also turned out to be the fastest in real time, i.e., I spent only 1.5 hours on it (but, of course, I already knew the whole map inside and out)!

So, the main points:

1. Taking the village with the boat on day 5 seemed like an unconvincing argument to me, since the computer doesn't build the 4th level of magic before day 12 anyway. Therefore, I considered it optimal to take the village on day 6.

2. Battle with ogres on day 4 while preserving all archers (without archers, pikemen will not join).

3. Collecting all genies.

4. One of the most important points. WE DO NOT TAKE THE BOOTS, ACCORDINGLY WE DO NOT LOSE GENIES AND ARCHERS!

5. Join gargoyles without leaving the boat (in principle, they are not needed)!

6. Land on day 10 not at the castle with dragons, but at the castle with phoenixes!

7. On day 11, capture the phoenix castle and pursue the computer on the same island.

8. Landing on day 12 by the centaurs (dragon castle island), who join.

9. Buying only Wizards and Sorceresses in the dragon castle.

10. Assuming that many will have such a result, it is necessary to make sure that the main (leveled) hero attacks last.

11. Take the mercury mine as quickly as possible. Which in a few days would add some mercury (or flasks, my good old slang) to the treasury.

Main walkthrough via 3rd method

Day 1 (111)

Arturius with army:
5 archers, 45 peasants
takes +14 ore and a chest +1500 gold. Takes 1 step left.

Day 2 (112)

Dmitry is purchased with army:
5 archers, 35 peasants
Dmitry transfers his entire army, except for 1 peasant, to Arturius.
Arturius joins a good 29 fairies!
Dmitry takes all the army from Arturius, except for 29 fairies; turns end here.
Arturius visits the gazebo (attack +1) and, paying no attention to gemstones, runs up. Falls asleep 2 steps from the casket.

Day 3 (113)

Since I calculated that ogres should fight the next day, Dmitry must transfer all army to Arturius as his last step the next day. For this, the following decisions were made:

Arturius takes the casket +1500 gold and runs toward the Ogres, but NOT completely spending all his steps! Exactly one unused step must remain (day 113)!



Dmitry MUST take the ore mine (stones will be necessary for building the castle), and, paying no attention to gemstones, runs after Arturius.
In the BAYWATCH castle we buy Sorceress Ariel with army:
12 fairies, 3 dwarves.
We direct her to catch up with Arturius. Sleeps two steps from the gemstones.

Day 4 (114)

Ariel visits the same gazebo (knowledge +1), collects +5 gemstones and transfers all her army, except for 1 fairy, to Dmitry.
Dmitry, in turn, does the same toward Arturius, leaving himself a similarly small fairy.
Arturius increases luck in the ring of faeries (quite a strange name) and attacks MANY OGRES:

Battle 1

Arturius's army:
10 archers, 83 peasants, 2 dwarves, 39 fairies.

Enemy army:
20 ogres. 5 stacks of 4 each.

Troop deployment before battle:



Since random chance in battles is widely developed in Heroes 1, it is practically impossible to fully restore the entire confrontation!
But nevertheless, I will try.

Turn 1

Fairies pass, archers shoot at the first ogre slot.
Peasants stand in front of the archers. Dwarves also move up, to defend the archers.

Turn 2



Fairies pass. Archers shoot at the first slot, taking out 1 ogre.
Peasants, dwarves – pass.

Turn 3



Fairies pass. Archers shoot at the first slot, taking out 1 ogre.
Peasants finish off 1 ogre slot. Dwarves pass.

Turn 4



Fairies fly to the far lower corner. The 2nd ogre slot hits 37 peasants, who in turn respond but do not take out a single ogre. We shoot at the second slot with archers with LUCK, taking out 2 ogres in the second slot. Peasants hit 1 ogre from 2 slots, who in turn strike 7 peasants. We pass with dwarves.

Turn 5



With fairies we kill the 2nd ogre slot. The 3rd ogre slot attacks the dwarves, killing one. We shoot at the 3rd slot with archers. With peasants at the 3rd slot, taking out 1 ogre; they respond and leave only 14 peasants on the battlefield. We also attack the 3rd slot with the remaining dwarf.

Turn 6



With fairies we attack the 3rd ogre slot in a straight line, as shown in the figure:



We take out 2 ogres, they respond and kill 5 fairies; fairies in response finish off the 3rd ogre slot.
With archers we shoot at the 4th ogre slot. (And for some reason the fifth ogre slot goes around the stone). With peasants we attack the 4th ogre slot, killing 1 ogre; they respond by killing the last peasants and attack the one fearless dwarf who withstands the onslaught of the 4th slot and responds. The fearless dwarf again deals an unanswered blow to the 4th ogre slot.

Turn 7



With fairies we hit the 4th ogre slot, taking out 1. With archers we shoot at them, taking out another one. 2 ogres attack and kill 5 defenseless fairies; they respond without hesitation and kill the 4th slot. Dwarves move 1 cell forward.

Turn 8



With fairies we fly to the far lower corner. Ogres hit the dwarf. Archers shoot at the last slot.

Turn 9



With fairies we attack the last ogre slot, killing 1 ogre. Ogres hit 13 fairies; they in response take out another ogre. Archers with LUCK take out 1 ogre.

Turn 10



Unsure if the fairies can kill an ogre (remaining health is not written in Heroes 1), we fly away with fairies to the standard corner.
Ogres, of course, do not reach the archers. They in turn shoot and achieve victory!

It should be noted that on turn 8 there was a completely unnecessary sacrifice with dwarves (in this case it was done intentionally). If you move back with dwarves on turn 8, the ending would have had more fairies. But I tried to get close to the result I got from the 2nd time of the main run.

After battle:
When writing description - 10 archers, 16 fairies.
When completing - 10 archers, 11 fairies.

Arturius takes only 1 genie from the lamp, no more money. He rests there.

Day 5 (115)

Dmitry takes a treasure chest +1000 gold and +8 wood located near the paladins. Moves strictly north to another chest, but falls asleep 1 step short.
Ariel pursues only one goal: grab nearby lumber and move toward the village. She was 2 steps short of the same lumber (which is near the obelisk).

Arturius takes another 3 genies, picks up +5 crystals blocking the way to the village and stops a step away from pikemen eager to join.

Day 6 (116)

Dmitry adds 1000 gold to the treasury (in a chest near the archers), + 13 wood and +6 mercury! Then he thinks it over and heads for the lumber Ariel wanted, taking one step south from the mercury.

Ariel, realizing she no longer needs to take the wood, runs at full speed for +6 gemstones (in the passage to the sulfur mine), stopping for the night after taking them.

Arturius joins 22 pikemen, adds +1500 gold to the treasury by taking a chest right at the entrance to ALGARI village and attacks the village:

Battle 2

Arturius's army:
10 archers, 4 genies, 22 pikemen, 11 fairies.

Enemy army:
8 peasants, 2 swordsmen, 6 archers.

Tactic:

Battle only with genies.

After battle:

No losses
+1 attack

Deploying all troops in the village except for a genie, Arturius heads toward the gold mine, but falls 3 steps short of the ogres guarding it.

In Baywatch castle, Luna is hired, who immediately heads west with a very interesting mission…

Day 7 (117)

Arturius hits the ogres:

Battle 3

Arturius's army:
4 genies.

Enemy army:
20 ogres (5 slots of 4 ogres).

Tactic:

"And the ogres only move 1 cell"

After battle:

No losses
+1 knowledge

Takes the gold mine, attacks pikemen (AUTO-BATTLE), collects +3 sulfur +1500 gold. Heads toward the lower pikemen guarding crystals. Falls asleep 2 steps from the village.

Ariel takes +16 lumber north of Algari village. Sleeps there.

Dmitry also replenishes the treasury by +16 wood and heads toward the village.

Luna takes a chest and adds another +2000 gold to the treasury! Makes her way to the sulfur located near the gargoyles.

We build ALGARI CASTLE!

Day 8 (121)

Arturius on auto-battle hits 25 pikemen, and, paying no attention to crystals, attacks the swordsmen guarding the lamp with genies:

Battle 4

Arturius's army:
4 genies.

Enemy army:
24 swordsmen (4 slots of 5 swordsmen, one of 4).

Tactic:

We pass the first 2 turns; on the third turn we attack the first group of swordsmen, then the second, and then the third.



After battle:

No losses
+1 spell power

Since mercury is considered a resource in the tournament, capturing the only mercury mine on the home island is an important feature. Therefore, bypassing the lamp, Arturius breaks through 26 bandits on auto-battle and captures the coveted mine! Then he takes a step west toward the lamp and falls asleep.

Dmitry moves toward the swamp for gemstones. Falls 3 steps short.

Ariel, taking all the army in Algari castle, gets into the boat.

Luna adds +1500 gold to the treasury (chest on the swamp), +3 sulfur near the gargoyles. Sleeps there.

Day 9 (122)

Arturius hires 5 genies, takes +15 ore at the Sanctuary and transfers all genies to Ariel who has sailed up, receiving 1 fairy in return. Here he also replenishes the treasury with +1000 gold found in a chest. Sets off to travel to the swamp.

Dmitry, after adding +6 gemstones, freezes by the statue, anticipating tomorrow's battle with fairies and dwarves (ore is not needed anyway).

Ariel sails. Overnight stay right on deck, in the strait between two islands.

Luna prefers grass over swamp and takes 1 little step southeast, coming very close to the friendly gargoyles.

Day 10 (123)

Arturius heads for gold, sleeps on the swamp a step from the obelisk. I wonder if anyone will dig up the treasure?

Ariel sails close to Luna.

Luna takes all army from Ariel, leaving 1 fairy for Ariel. With the whole army, Luna takes a step right and concludes a peace treaty with gargoyles +30 units. Transfers all army back to Ariel, except for the joined gargoyles. Luna rushes at full speed toward Dmitry, but falls 2 steps short.

Dmitry himself approaches Luna and makes an exchange of 1 fairy for 30 gargoyles, with whom he hits 20 fairies guarding the sulfur mine on auto-battle, losing 2 gargoyles. For some reason captures the sulfur mine and on auto-battle hits dwarves guarding the gemstone mine, losing 1 gargoyle.

Ariel lands not on the island with dragon castles, but on the island with Phoenix castles! (I don't like to load/save in hope that the computer will change its mind and build 5th level magic on day 12. In my case, the computer built 5th level magic only on day 13. Already after my result was counted, for the sake of experiment I played again and by under-collecting genies, on day 12 I myself built 5th level magic in the castle with dragons, but unfortunately, the computer runs too far from its castles and reaching it does not seem possible).
I also draw your attention to a particular oddity of the computer. As seen from the screenshot, yellow is clearly aimed at attacking centaurs (who join!) and that's how it goes if you land on his island. If you land on the island with phoenixes, as shown in the screenshot, the cunning computer for some reason runs away from the free centaurs.



Day 11 (124)

Arturius, having finally and irrevocably contracted gold fever, grabs +500 gold near the obelisk on the swamp, as well as a chest +2000 gold near the ogres. Driven mad, he heads to attack the ogres boldly guarding mercury, but falls 2 steps short.

Dmitry takes another unnecessary gemstone mine, adds +11 logs and +1000 gold in a nearby chest to the treasury. Heads back to pray to the statue. Falls 2 steps short as usual.

Luna takes the Sawmill and a chest +2000 gold near it.

Ariel attacks Blackbridge phoenix castle:

Battle 5

Ariel's army:
9 genies, 22 pikemen, 10 archers, 31 fairies.

Enemy army:
7 unicorns, 8 elves.

Tactic:

Genies deal with unicorns in 1 turn (from the first hit -6 horses).
Fairies attack archers.

Losses after battle:
10 archers, 5 fairies

In the captured Blackbridge castle, Sorceress Gem is hired.

Gem takes 9 Genies and 41 fairies from Ariel and attacks the red hero TROJAN.

Battle 6

Gem's army:
9 genies, 41 fairies.

Enemy army:
30 fairies, 13 dwarves, 9 druids.

Tactic:

Lightning on Fairies, Genies on druids. Dwarves are powerless.

After battle:
No losses

After an unconditional and obvious victory, Gem gets into the boat.
Ariel with 22 pikemen makes her way to Muddlegate village.

Day 12 (125)

Dmitry, having nothing better to do, takes +3 sulfur near Tundara village and falls asleep there forever. He is too lazy to capture the village since there is little use for it anymore…

Ariel on auto-battle hits bandits guarding the village and captures the village itself in a similar way, losing several pikemen (not a pity). Runs deep into the island in search of red.

Luna stands, apparently waiting for someone.

Gem lands near centaurs +43 units, who after deliberation decided to betray yellow by joining our army.

Arturius, with an army of 1 fairy, attacks ogres, from whom he runs away (ARTURIUS is the main hero)!
Let's watch the computer's greed during turn transition:
was:



Day 13 (126) – last.

became:



No comments…

Only on day 13 did the computer decide to build 5th level magic.

Ariel without losses hits Rebecca on auto-battle.

Luna takes +13 ore on the swamp.

Gem attacks Astra:

Battle 7

Gem's army:
9 genies, 41 fairies.

Enemy army:
15 fairies, 3 dwarves, 4 griffins, 2 minotaurs, 1 hydra.

Tactic:

Lightning on Fairies, Genies on Griffins; Minotaurs got a response from genies, fairies and shooters hit dwarves. Lightning on hydras.

After battle:
No losses

Then attacks Agar:

Battle 8

Gem's army:
9 genies, 41 fairies.

Enemy army:
14 centaurs, 2 gargoyles, 2 hydras.

Tactic:

Blindness on gargoyles, Genies destroy hydras and centaurs. Fairies hit gargoyles.

After battle:
No losses

And finally in auto-battle mode takes the dragon castle ALAMAR without losses (defense 3 hydras).

In ALAMAR castle, Karlawn is hired.
Who takes all 9 genies from Gem and flies to battle with the last yellow using portal magic.


Battle 9

Gem's army:
9 genies.

Enemy army:
8 griffins, 17 gargoyles, 13 centaurs, 1 hydra, 15 dwarves.

Tactic:

Storm, resurrection, antimagic

After battle:
No losses

Yellow is defeated. Karlawn teleports to ALAMAR castle.

In ALAMAR Barok (Warlock) is hired, who taking all centaurs from Gem teleports to the Phoenix castle island. Attacks red, defeating him in AUTO-BATTLE mode, and removes red flags from this land.

In the glorious city of ALAMAR Natasha is hired.

First jump to phoenix island, takes a campfire +600 gold, 6 wood.

Second to cyclops island. Third by the coveted Burlock village.

20 goblins guarding the village are not serious at all against 73 fairies and 4 genies transferred to Natasha from Gem.

Meanwhile, a CASTLE is being built in Burlock village! From which runs out a Sorceress with an interesting name Astra.

Astra in auto-battle mode without losses takes out Lord Kilburn.
(see screenshot in the one following №6)

Since there are already 8 heroes and the opponent is not defeated, we get rid of Natasha.

Instead of her, we buy our MAIN and PRIMARY hero, who should take the bull by the horns with the last move! Having bought a magic book, taking 5 genies and 5 centaurs (centaurs are needed for the first hit of the opponent's tower arrow) and stealing a chest +2000 gold from under the noses of the dragons, the main hero stops at the last blue castle! But he does not attack it, but calmly waits for his last turn.

(see screenshot in the one following №6)

We dismiss everyone except Astra (83 fairies, 4 genies) and Arturius (5 genies, 5 centaurs).

In Burlock Atlas is hired. Who, exchanging army with Astra (5 orcs, 25 goblins for 83 fairies, 4 genies), attacks Sundax:

(see screenshot in the one following №6)

Battle 10

Atlas's army:
83 fairies, 4 genies.

Enemy army:
21 goblins, 8 orcs, 8 wolves, 5 trolls, 21 dwarves.

Tactic:

1st turn Genies on trolls, fairies on goblins.
2nd turn Genies on trolls, fairies on dwarves.
3rd turn Genies and fairies on dwarves.

Losses after battle:
4 genies, 9 fairies.

In Burlock Crodo (Warlock) is hired. Who, receiving all army from Astra, attacks Lord Haart:

Battle 11

Crodo's army:
8 centaurs, 2 gargoyles, 24 goblins, 5 orcs.

Enemy army:
5 archers, 47 peasants.

Tactic:

Everyone on archers, peasants don't count

Losses after battle:
1 orc, 1 goblin.

We say goodbye to all other heroes and make the last classic knight move! Namely, we attack the last enemy castle Sabran with the only hero Arturius.

Battle 12

Artirius's army:
5 genies, 5 centaurs.

Enemy army:
11 orcs, 12 ogres, 2 trolls, 11 goblins.

Tactic:

AUTO-BATTLE
Losses after battle:
1 genie, 5 centaurs.

So all heroes used by me:
Arturius (Knight) -> last blue castle Xabran
Dmitry (Knight) ->
Ariel (Sorceress) -> phoenix castle Blackbridge, hero Rebecca,
Luna (Sorceress) ->
Gem (Sorceress) -> hero Trojan, hero Astra, hero Agar, dragon castle ALAMAR
Karlawn (Sorceress) -> last yellow
Barok (Warlock) ->last red
Natasha (Sorceress) ->
Astra (Sorceress) ->hero Lord Kilburn
Atlas (Barbarian) ->hero Sundax
Crodo (Warlock) ->hero Lord Haart

TOTAL:

Days 13

ARTURIUS has the following characteristics:
attack +3, defense +2, spell power +2, knowledge +2 total 9.

Mercury 11.

continued...

Additional screenshots that didn't fit in the description (limit of 20 files)

Astra defeats Lord Kilburn without any losses.



Arturius is waiting for his moment!



Atlas kills Sundax.

Day 1 - Gathering.
The lack of initial resources didn't upset Arturius much, so he boldly set out to gather them, leaving his army in the castle. Since gold can solve many problems, and stone and wood are simply essential for a knight's castle, he will focus on collecting them first.

Day 2 - The Birth of a Hero. There is enough money to hire a Hero, the one destined for many battles, brave deeds, great sieges, and mysterious magic - the Great Dimitrius. The city welcomes the new Hero, who has joined the ranks of the Knights.
Dimitrius, taking 10 archers and 82 peasants, boldly attacks a group of fairies near the quarry and... adds them to his ranks. Arturius collects precious stones, which will come in handy.

Day 3 - Training
Arturius, standing on the geyser, skillfully grabs a chest of gold. At the same time, Dimitrius visits the gazebo and gains experience from a chest. It was a glorious day.

Day 4 - Reconnaissance
Dimitrius runs past the dragon stone mine, heading strictly west. There is something there.
Moving north with 1 peasant, Arturius manages to gather some more money in the treasury by evening. That's enough for a well.

Day 5 - A Difficult Battle
Truly a key moment in the entire game - a battle with Ogres. But the treasure they guard is worth it. Therefore, having boosted his luck before the battle (it won't hurt), Dimitrius attacks the enemy.
It was important to place archers on top and peasants below to protect them. The trees and stones on the battlefield slightly slowed down the already slow ogres, which gave the archers a chance to fire an extra arrow or two. However, a melee battle was inevitable - 20 ogres with 40 hit points against... hmm... "brave" peasants, supported by Dimitrius's morale and luck. However, the battle was won. All 10 archers and the remaining 10 fairies celebrate a hard-won victory.
In honor of the veterans of the battle, a shooting range is built in the castle.

Day 6 - An Amazing Lamp
While Dimitrius "catches his breath" after the intense battle, Arturius runs to the lamp and "brings" 4 wonderful djinns to the Hero Dimitrius. Wonderful because, with a relatively low hiring cost and no need to build a building, their stats are hardly inferior to the highest-ranked troops. Hearing about Dimitrius's glorious victory, a group of spearmen joins, clearing the path to the village. There he leaves them to guard it, as it is much faster to travel with a djinn.

Day 7 - Gold Mines
The gold mine north of the village will be a good source of income for the treasury. The djinns easily deal with the guards. Arturius takes the city guard and moves south. The spearmen building in the castle will provide new recruits at the beginning of the new week.

Day 8 - Battle after Battle
Dimitrius continues to move south. Visiting the gazebo, battles with spearmen and swordsmen bring more and more experience, and open the second lamp. He also manages to capture a mercury mine.
Arturius continues on another path south, taking a bunch of dragon stones.

Day 9 - Phoenixes
Taking one archer "for reconnaissance" from Arturius, Dimitrius moves towards the swamps, where a flock of phoenixes attacks him. The archer-scout sacrifices his life to "distract" two firebirds, giving the djinns a chance to strike at the heart of the flock. Having lost two, the djinns turn the entire flock into a handful of ashes. In the swamps nearby, Dimitrius finds a great pair of boots, which will help him move faster.

Day 10 - Treasures of the Swamps
In the swamps, Dimitrius finds many chests and "takes" an excellent shield from the trolls. Arturius helps to collect the treasures.

Day 11 - A Sorcerer
Seeing the legendary shield in the hands of the leader of the troops, a flock of gargoyles joins Dimitrius.
A sorcerer rushes to meet him from the castle. Having once served the dark Warlock, he told about the powerful magic that his former master will soon master and will be able to transport his troops across any mountains and rivers to destroy his enemies.
Arturius gets out of the swamp.

Day 12 - Decision
With the stone birds, the hero Dimitrius wins the village from the evil orcs. Seeing the happy faces of the villagers, he realizes that their well-being is in his hands. Only he is able to challenge the dark forces. Dimitrius rushes home with good news - he will go against the forces of darkness.
The sorcerer meets Arturius and leads all the troops to the castle, as every warrior will be needed in the upcoming battles.

Day 13 - The Warlock's Citadel
In the city, the hero is greeted with joy, and a detachment of archers and spearmen joins the warriors who arrived with the sorcerer.
Dimitrius with 7 djinns, 32 gargoyles, 34 spearmen, 27 archers, and 7 centaurs bravely attacks 20 paladins guarding the magic portal. The battle is won with small losses - 4 spearmen and 7 centaurs, but this is only the beginning.
The portal transports the hero to the lands of the warlock, but a flock of dragons is already flying in the sky. They manage to "burn" 9 archers and a gargoyle before they are defeated.
To the south, the warlock's citadel is visible, which Dimitrius's troops besiege. At the cost of almost all the archers, the fortress is taken. But the army no longer has the strength to enter the city.
Gem is freed from the citadel's prison, who tells about the warlock's accomplice, the cunning Sorceress, who turned to the dark side. She volunteers to avenge her for the betrayal and, using the magic of the portal, rushes to the Sorceress's castle with a detachment of brave spearmen. The weak guard, caught off guard, is quickly destroyed, but Gem remains in the fortress, waiting for the main forces of the Sorceress.

Day 14 - Tribes of Barbarians
The morning brought good news for Dimitrius. At night, Gem successfully repelled the attack of the Sorceress's forces. Several gnomes helped, showing how to better organize the defense.
But there was also bad news: the main forces of the warlock have not yet been defeated. And the warlike tribes of Barbarians in the north threaten war.
Dimitrius sets out at dawn on a campaign. In a difficult battle, he defeats the warlock's troops.
Having studied the magic of the portal in the citadel, he boldly moves north and successfully storms the Barbarian fortress.
Vatavna arrives from the Warlock's citadel to guard the fortress.
Gem continues her punitive campaign. She captures the Sorceress's second city.
The sorcerer arrives from the knightly lands in the lands of the Warlock.

Day 15 - Expulsion of the Enemies
Gem kills the last sorceress, forever banishing the traitors. Elves and fairies will again dominate these forests.
The sorcerer repels the warlock's village, and his childhood friend sets out from the same castle to finish off the last warlock.
Vatavna sets out from the barbarian castle, taking trolls with her, and rushes north to defeat the hordes of the Sundax tribes.
Dimitrius captures the second city of the Barbarian, rushes north, where he fights the main forces of the Sundax tribes. The last village near the sea fell.
The enemies are defeated!

Day 1
Knight Arturius heads toward an ore mine guarded by fairies, picking up 14 ore and 1500 gold along the way; however, one move short of reaching it, he stops for a camp so that tomorrow, with renewed strength, he can reclaim the mine he sought.

Day 2 (Secrets of Diplomacy)
Fortunately, there is now exactly enough gold to summon another valiant knight to help — Dimitri, who, with a blessing for the long journey, transfers 5 archers and 34 peasants to Arturius.
After this, a joyful Arturius rushes into battle against 28 fairies. The latter, apparently enchanted by Arturius's valor, join him; then, after visiting a gazebo, the brave hero immediately sets off southwest toward the lumber mine.

Day 3
Dimitri picks up 5 gems and continues his journey north, taking another 1500 gold.
Arturius continues his path to the mine, veering slightly east to pick up a treasure chest.
A well is built.

Day 4
Dimitri takes 1000 gold.
Arturius has better luck. He brings another 2000 gold to his kingdom and fearlessly enters battle with the toothy gargoyles that have dug into the sawmill.

Battle 1. Arturius 2-2-1-1
28 fairies, 10 Archers, 83 peasants (239 HP) vs. 30 toothy gargoyles (450 HP)
Arturius's losses were 19 fairies, 60 peasants, 10 archers (198 HP)

On this day, Arturius also manages to capture the lumber mine, after which he sends 23 peasants on an indefinite rest, while he himself stays to rest until dawn in the sawmill with 9 fairies.

From the Castle, a couple of Barbarians are dispatched to aid the two brave knights — Ergon and Atlas, who, leaving all the orcs in the castle, end their journey this day a few moves below the horseshoe.

A smithy is built.

Day 5
Arturius picks up 2000 gold and 3 sulfur, while Dimitri takes 8 lumber and another 1000 gold and heads toward the remaining pile of wood. This allows another Barbarian — Kelzen — to be dispatched from the castle, who manages to transfer all goblins and orcs to Atlas.
Atlas takes 3 sulfur and attacks the orcs at the village entrance.

Battle 2. Atlas 2-1-1-1
65 goblins, 13 orcs (325 HP) vs. 27 (270 HP)
Atlas's losses were 4 goblins, 11 orcs (122 HP)

Atlas approaches the angel statue and raises his spirits, but he does not dare capture the village this day, remaining to spend the night before its gates.
Meanwhile, Ergon heads into the sticky swamps for ore, falling 1 move short of it this day.

A tavern is built.

Day 6
Arturius enters the swamp and picks up 1500 gold, but feeling that his horse's legs will sink into this foul sludge, he returns to his home hills. The marshy terrain is not frightening to Barbarians, and Ergon picks up 13 ore and 500+2000 gold here. Dimitri brings the kingdom another 13+16 lumber.
Kelzen grabs the horseshoe, passes it to Atlas, and races back to the castle. Atlas, emboldened by increased morale and luck, attacks the village.

Battle 3. Atlas 2-1-1-1
61 goblins, 2 orcs (203 HP) vs. 6 swordsmen, 8 pikemen (270 HP)
Atlas's losses were 40 goblins, 2 orcs (140 HP)

After the victory, Atlas heads to the old knight in the gazebo for further improvement of his skills.

An armory is built.

Day 7
Arturius picks up 6 gems, visits the statue, and falls asleep nearby.
Dimitri, noticing nothing on his path, heads east toward Algary village.
Ergon bypasses the swamp from the north and picks up 1000 gold.
Atlas visits the gazebo and sets off for the recently captured village.
Kelzen returns to the castle, where in exchange for one goblin he acquires 3 riders (after the construction of the lists).

Lists are built.

Day 8 (Secrets of the Ancient Lamp)
Dimitri picks up 5 crystals and stops near the pikemen guarding Algary village.
Kelzen acquires another 5 riders in the castle and, taking a goblin along, transfers all 8 riders to Atlas; afterward, Atlas rushes toward the sulfur mine guarded by 20 fairies.

Battle 4. Atlas 3-2-1-1
21 goblins, 8 riders (303 HP) vs. 20 fairies (40 HP)
No losses

Atlas transfers the entire army to Arturius, borrowing one fairy from him; then Arturius sets off through the swamp toward Ergon, to whom he transfers the newly acquired army, leaving only 2 fairies in his own force.
Ergon attacks the brigands guarding the alchemist's laboratory.

Battle 5. Ergon 2-1-1-1
8 riders, 6 fairies, 22 goblins (318 HP) vs. 26 brigands (104 HP)
Ergon's losses were 2 fairies (4 HP)

Without wasting time, Ergon throws himself into battle with 24 swordsmen guarding the Ancient Lamp.

Battle 6. Ergon 2-1-1-1
8 riders, 4 fairies, 22 goblins (314 HP) vs. 24 swordsmen (600 HP)
Ergon's losses were 4 riders, 4 fairies, 22 goblins (194 HP)

Without touching the Ancient Lamp, Ergon heads to a nearby gazebo.

Day 9
Atlas moves north toward the crystal mine. Kelzen follows close behind, managing to pick up 6 gems.

Ergon finally touches the lamp, where he manages to obtain 2 djinn! and immediately attacks the pikemen guarding the crystals.

Battle 7. Ergon 2-1-1-1
4 riders, 2 djinns (220 HP) vs. 25 pikemen (375 HP)
No losses

After the battle and visiting the gazebo, Ergon increases his level to 3rd, then takes 7 crystals and enters a battle with the pikemen near Algary village.

Battle 8. Ergon 2-3-1-1
4 riders, 2 djinns (220 HP) vs. 22 pikemen (330 HP)
No losses

Having picked up 1500 gold in a treasure chest, Arturius buys another 2 djinns and transfers them to Ergon along with 1 fairy; the latter, in turn, attacks the villagers.

Battle 9. Ergon 2-3-1-1
4 riders, 4 djinns, 1 fairy (322 HP) vs. 8 peasants, 2 swordsmen, 6 archers, 4 pikemen (178 HP)
No losses

Dimitri replaces Ergon, taking all the djinns and riders, giving a fairy to Ergon, and attacking the ogres guarding the gold mine.

Battle 10. Dimitri 1-2-1-1
4 riders, 4 djinns (320 HP) vs. 20 ogres (800 HP)
No losses

Having captured the mine, Dimitri manages to fight the pikemen standing nearby.

Battle 11. Dimitri 1-2-1-1
4 riders, 4 djinns (320 HP) vs. 20 pikemen (300 HP)
No losses

Dimitri brings another 3 sulfur and 1500 coins to the kingdom's treasury this day, after which he peacefully falls asleep until tomorrow.

Day 10
Dimitri finds 16 lumber, approaches Ergon, and returns the entire army to him.
Arturius returns to the lamp, where he summons the last djinn, whom he also transfers to Ergon.
After this, Ergon heads toward another Ancient Lamp.

Battle 12. Ergon 2-3-1-1
4 riders, 5 djinns, 1 fairy (372 HP) vs. 20 ogres (800 HP)
No losses

Having bought another 4 djinns, Ergon transfers the entire army to Kelzen as he approaches. Then Kelzen carries this army to Atlas, who then attacks the paladins guarding the artifact.

Battle 13. Atlas 3-2-1-1
4 riders, 9 djinns (570 HP) vs. 8 paladins (400 HP)
Atlas's losses were 4 riders (120 HP)

Having finished the battle with the paladins, Atlas immediately directs his horse toward the castle.

Day 11
Arturius visits the gazebo and heads for a pile of ore lying near the Nomad's Boots.
Atlas transfers the djinns to Kelzen and, changing his mind about going to the castle, changes direction toward Algary village.
Kelzen transfers the entire army to Ergon.
Ergon attacks 18 fairies guarding the crystal mine, then heads toward the archers guarding the sulfur.

Battle 14. Ergon 3-3-1-1
9 djinns (450 HP) vs. 18 fairies (36 HP)
No losses

Dimitri captures the crystal mine and takes a large scroll of knowledge.
Kelzen picks up 6 mercury and stops near Ergon.

Day 12
Arturius takes 15 ore and, crossing the swamp, moves toward the castle.
Atlas visits the gazebo and rushes into the swamp to replace Arturius.
Ergon attacks the archers.

Battle 15. Ergon 3-3-1-1
9 djinns (450 HP) vs. 26 archers (260 HP)
No losses

After the battle, Ergon transfers the djinns to Dimitri, spurs his horses, and races to the castle.
Dimitri heads south toward the gem mine.
Kelzen picks up 6 sulfur and also returns south.

A shooting range is built.

Day 13
Ergon continues his way to the castle, visiting a gazebo on the road.
Arturius also races toward the castle.
Dimitri, meanwhile, fights dwarves.

Battle 16. Dimitri 1-3-1-4
9 djinns (450 HP) vs. 13 dwarves (260 HP)
No losses

Next, Dimitri picks up another 11 lumber, captures the gem mine, and opens a chest in which he finds 1000 gold coins. After this, he also sets off for Baywatch Castle.
Kelzen catches up with Dimitri and ends his move near him.

Meanwhile, Ariel is purchased at the castle; she goes out to meet Arturius with 10 fairies, 10 swordsmen, 6 pikemen, 1 archer, and 1 peasant.
Atlas quickly crosses the swamp and runs toward the statue built by the inhabitants of Tundara.

A mages' guild is built.

Day 14 (Secrets of Terrain Tactics)
Dimitri transfers 9 djinns to Kelzen, who on the same day manages to reclaim an invisible shield from trolls.

Battle 17. Kelzen 2-1-1-4
9 djinns (450 HP) vs. 10 trolls (400 HP)
No losses

Ergon successfully arrives at the castle, where he stays overnight.
Arturius, not having managed to leave the hated swamp, returns to it again, taking Ariel's army with him.
Dimitri follows his example and even overtakes him, getting into the very thick of this sticky terrain, while not forgetting to take the quickly arriving reinforcements from Arturius.
Ariel makes a few moves toward the castle.
And Atlas, having visited the Angel statue, gallops across half the swamp and stops before the phoenixes.

Day 15
Kelzen takes the shield and attacks the ogres.

Battle 18. Kelzen 2-3-1-4
9 djinns (450 HP) vs. 20 ogres (800 HP)
No losses

He takes 5 mercury (a mistake that likely cost 1 day of the game; mercury could have been taken a day later). Then he takes the entire army from Dimitri and transfers 3 artifacts and this whole army to Atlas.

Battle 19. Atlas 4-4-1-4, morale — high, luck — good
1 archer, 10 swordsmen, 6 pikemen, 1 peasant, 9 djinns (801 HP) vs. 8 phoenixes (800 HP)
Atlas's losses were 1 djinn, 2 swordsmen, 2 pikemen, 1 archer (140 HP)

Brief battle description. Djinns pass. 2 phoenixes kill 1 archer, 2 phoenixes kill 1 djinn and die from the counterattack. Another 2 phoenixes attack djinns, but none die. The remaining phoenixes (1+1) hit swordsmen. Then swordsmen and pikemen hit the one-HP phoenixes (pikemen with luck). As a result, 2 stacks of phoenixes remain. The first stack hits swordsmen again. The second stack is killed by djinns. Good djinn morale allows attacking the last 2 phoenixes. Victory! (P.S. Later, no matter how many times I replayed it, I never managed to lose only 1 djinn, and I lost far more swordsmen and pikemen, but this basically does not affect the course of the rest of the game).

Because of Kelzen's great effort to bring as much mercury as possible to the kingdom, Atlas fails to take the nomad's boots and heads toward Dimitri to transfer at least the other artifacts and army.

The same chain — Dimitri-Arturius-Ariel — carries out an instant redeployment of military forces and artifacts to Ergon. After reinforcement, 10 riders (thanks to a week of riders; though without it, the course of the game would not have changed) and other army units are included in Ergon's detachments. Finally, having acquired a magic book, Ergon attacks the paladins.

Battle 20. Ergon 4-5-1-4
8 djinns, 5 pikemen, 10 riders, 13 swordsmen, 1 archer (1101 HP) vs. 20 paladins (1000 HP)
Ergon's losses were 4 riders, 12 swordsmen, 3 pikemen, 1 archer (475 HP)
Brief battle description. Played poorly, but the computer players didn't find it any easier for that.

Ariel manages to take the now-vacant chest with 1500 gold, return to the castle, and slightly replenish Ergon's thinned army ranks.

Ergon enters a menhir and finds phoenixes there. After warming himself by the campfire, he finally attacks them!

Battle 21. Ergon 5-5-1-4
8 djinns, 6 riders, 2 swordsmen, 7 pikemen, 1 archer (745 HP) vs. 10 phoenixes (1000 HP)
Ergon's losses were 3 djinns, 2 riders, 7 pikemen, 1 archer (325 HP)
Ergon confidently descends south toward the red castle.

Day 16

Kelzen picks up the nomad's boots and passes them to Atlas, who passes them to Dimitri, Dimitri to Arturius, Arturius to Ariel, and Ariel finally to Ergon.

Ergon destroys Rebecca (red) and captures Blackbridge (red), where he immediately builds Mages' Guild 4. A Portal — and Ergon is already at Middlegate; one move — and Middlegate is ours!

Warlock Arius is dispatched from Blackbridge. A Portal — and he is at Castle Alamar (yellow); another move — and Alamar is also ours.

Warlock Agar is dispatched from Blackbridge. Having captured 2000 gold in a chest near the cyclops using a portal, Agar attacks Castle Xabran (blue) with 1 fairy, 1 gargoyle, 1 centaur, 1 elf, and 1 dwarf. Hurrah! Several ogres died! And many more heroes can be bought.

Warlock Krodo is dispatched from Blackbridge. On this day he manages to enter the gazebo, increase his spell power, and return to the castle. It will all happen, just tomorrow...

On the night of the 16th to the 17th, the red player dies in a last attempt to reclaim their castle.

Day 17

Attack!!!
Krodo uses the portal spell twice to get close to hero Sundax (blue) and successfully destroy him.

Arius captures Sandcaster village (yellow).

From the yellow castle, Falagar sets off to destroy hero Tsabu, after which the existence of the yellow race ceases.

Sorceresses Astra and Ariel weaken Castle Xabran by another 8 ogres. And Warlock Barok finishes the job, and Xabran finally surrenders!

And the last word belongs to Ergon.
Ergon — Portal — Blackbridge — Portal — and here it is, the territory marked blue! Two more Portals — and Burlock (blue) has fallen! One last portal — and Ergon gets close to Lord Kilburn. A click — and an attack by 4 djinns on the blue army brings a sweet victory!!! :)

I would like to tell you a story that I was fortunate enough to witness.

I was born in a remote little village not far from Baywatch in the beautiful world of Might and Magic.

I grew up quickly, absorbing all the knowledge and teachings that my Grandfather instilled in me.

He was an incredibly intelligent man, but a former warrior. During years of war and wanderings through countries and distant corners in search of victory, unlike others, he collected not golden riches, but book riches. And he loved literature not as fiction, but as something that gives a person the ability to think and develop. Thus, not a day passed in my life without my Grandfather teaching me something. He called me simply GmiR, after his own father.

And so I turned 21, and a schism occurred in our once great country:
4 different lords seized the outposts, dug channels between them using magic, and became so bogged down in wars that they destroyed all their castles.

They decided then to take a short truce so the people could rest from the wars. But after some time, news spread to every corner of our world that the war had begun again. Then my Grandfather said
to me: I have given you everything I could. You have learned all the theory of logic and warfare :) (:) couldn't help myself :)) now you must study it all in practice. I know a brave knight whom all warriors follow. He is the son of an old friend of mine, may he rest in peace. The captain is called Arturius, and you shall go to him as a chronicler and advisor. Together you will bring order to this world... And so I set off for the town of Baywatch to find Arturius..

So, this story began not little by little, but much by much. Already on the approach to the city, I noticed a modestly dressed knight near a stream. He was watering his horse and saying something to it quietly. I decided to approach him, but suddenly 5 arrows stuck into the ground before my feet.

His loyal archers were on guard. I cried out. The noise attracted the knight, and he approached me himself.

- Great Gods! - he uttered. - How could they revive old Olend?!

- Not they - I answered him. - Olend is my Grandfather. And what is your name, worthy man?

- Arturius... - he kept looking and marveling at the resemblance.

- I have come to serve you. My name is GmiR, and I shall be your advisor!

- The Gods have given me a gift today by sending Olend's blood into my ranks! I am glad to see you, grandson of the great one!!

We talked until evening by the campfire about everything happening in this world, remembered fathers and grandfathers over some honey infusion, and fell asleep in the peasants' camp..

Morning came early, around 5; we had a quick snack of yesterday's dinner leftovers and set off for Baywatch. The city was two miles from us, so we reached it quickly.

Arriving there, we saw what destruction had befallen it. Aside from peasants and archers, no one was there. All the great warriors had fallen in battle; resources were at zero..

Thus, the first day arrived. Arturius was immediately proclaimed king (someone had to protect everyone!). With our militia, we moved north in search of resources. We were especially interested in gold, wood, and ore. I explained to the young knight that these resources would allow us to recruit pikemen as well, and build
castles upon capturing villages. We traveled along the river, crossed frozen lava, gathering all open riches.

In the castle, I advised building only a well and a smithy.

The 5th day arrived, and a messenger came to us saying that an old friend of Arturius—the gypsy Dimitri—had appeared in the castle. We immediately gave him instructions to use all his money to buy troops and move toward us, to the west.

He did exactly that, of course, but stopped at a quarry on the way.

The chief of the fairies guarding the mine had long been in love with Dimitri, and they all went to serve him. A true gypsy!! :) Then Dimitri went to the Sulfur deposits; on the way, he managed to coax a Horseshoe from a shepherd for 2000 gold, so that life would be easier. And he passed
by a village guarded by orcs. He killed the fairies near the sulfur and headed up.

We, meanwhile, headed north toward the Gem mine guarded by dwarves. There we met the gypsy. After a long conversation, I convinced Arturius that it was not wise to keep the army fragmented, and we took all of the gypsy's forces under our command. He didn't mind; in fact, he was glad, since
Arthur appointed him captain of Baywatch, but asked him thereafter to move flexibly and collect resources along the way. The gypsy even gave us the horseshoe. We, having beaten the dwarves and taken the gem mine, went to Tundara village and on the 9th day killed the evil orcs guarding it. On the 10th day we
took Tundara and headed down to the sawmill; Dimitri wandered through the swamp..

Day 11 - we finished building the castle in Tundara, and the Warlock Krodo joined us. He told us that he came from the south, where his homeland is, but was driven out of there for his kind treatment of slaves, and so he began to serve us. He gave centaurs and gargoyles to Arturius's army
so that he could study their habits and kill the gargoyles near the sawmill. I advised Arthur to make Krodo the captain of Tundara so that he would serve us henceforth. With a heavy heart, Arturius agreed, remembering the recently killed vile and far-flying gargoyles..

We headed north and met an elder who told us that there was a glorious port city in the northwest of the island. We decided to move there without delay. Crossing the island diagonally, we noticed a lamp around which a couple dozen ogres were crowding. I had read in one of my grandfather's books that djinns living in such lamps are extraordinarily fast, hardy, and can cut squads of pot-bellied dragons in half. We dispersed the ogres, and 4 djinns were now with us.

Two weeks passed, and on the 15th day, we approached Algari village. The pikemen guarding their homes in this village saw Arturius carrying Aladdin's lamp and realized that if mighty djinns serve this man, then he must be extraordinarily kind and noble. And about 20 pikemen joined our ranks.

On the 16th day, we captured Algari, built a castle there, and headed north to the gold mine.

The 17th day from the start of the journey was marked by the appearance of a new warrior in our kingdom—a little black girl named Natasha, who, besides her beautiful appearance, possessed the gift of a Sorceress and managed ships perfectly. I got to know Natasha "better," and after that,
I decided she should be the mistress of Algari. And so it was decided.

Then Arthur and I blazed a path along the left bank to the south, picking up another 5 djinns on the way. In the middle of the 20th day, we stumbled upon a group of phoenixes guarding speed-boots. Arturius did not want to touch these sacred birds, but I suggested to him that with these boots our affairs
would move faster. Moreover, according to my plan, we had set up production of pikemen, shooters, and peasants in all 3 castles. We gather everyone into one pile plus have djinns => we have a medium-sized army without excesses. So, with the help of Krodo and the Gypsy, we gathered all reserves and beat the Phoenixes. The boots are ours now!! Though 2 djinns perished among all other losses..

End of the 3rd week - day 21. Algari built a ship, and Natakha is waiting for growth to buy supplies, board the ship, and sail from the south to Arturius.

Day 22 - everyone bought their supplies and handed troops over to Arthur, and he went to the trolls for a shield so that enemy swords would hit our warriors less often. Natakha boarded her little ship and prepared to sail..

During day 23, we managed to kill the ogres to take an equally valuable and useless resource for us: mercury :) Natalia sailed so well that during this day she managed to reach Arthur at the bottom, and he immediately boarded this ship. We decided to sail to the homeland of Krodo Sumkin, since I knew that extraordinarily strong creatures live there; if the enemy builds them, things will be bad. For us, those purple toddlers would be just right!! :) Also, I knew they could give us a second side of power -
Magic!!

On the 24th, we landed on the hostile island. On the 25th, we immediately ran to the enemy's "kidneys" - Sandcaster. On the 26th, the capture of Sandcaster was successful. The castle turned out not to be a caster at all—there was no sign of magic there. On the same day, we headed for the "heart" of the Warlocks -
Alamar. To the north of it, we noticed the evil Falagar. At night, Agar emerged from the east and Astra from the west; Falagar, meanwhile, retook Sandcaster castle—it will be a difficult day!

27th We hit Alamar. We immediately study the spells of this castle and see that among those available is now TELEPORT!! Even though our knowledge is 3, we were extremely glad! With new knowledge, moving around has become much easier. Two jumps and we, killing Agar on the way, reach Sandcaster, where Falagar is firmly entrenched. In all battles, I always instructed the warriors to hit those enemies who move faster by initiative; this simple rule reduced the probability of the enemy using mass-destructive spells, like "Storm."

So, the day turned out successful; only the young and inexperienced Astra remained of the yellowed opponent, who could not surprise us in any way. We went to sleep peacefully.

Day 28. As I predicted by the calendar, this was to be the most significant day of our campaign. As expected, Astra ran past me toward Alamar, but alas for the young sorceress, she did not get far. Therefore, our detachment set out leisurely in the morning and easily caught up with the enemy; we killed them without anger, with tears in our eyes...

But what cunning was hidden under this innocent female face! Just as Senior Djinn Abu-Alder-ibn-Roshan began to recite
a prayer for the repose of young Astra's soul before erasing her from the world of HOMM, she screamed into the sky with extraordinary passion, calling upon "Storm"... It seemed even her eyes sparkled at that moment..

In the next moment, the Djinn made a quick death for the young witch.

YELLOW is defeated!!

As soon as the army recovered from the shock of the last battle, we went to Alamar to behold the great—the Black Tower! Now everyone understood that with tomorrow's day, when the winds bring three more purple pot-bellies into the tower, the time of victory will relentlessly approach.

Day 29. Yes, it happened. We tamed 4 Dragons at once and also brought in griffins, thus strengthening the offensive power of our army. Djinns/dragons/griffins received orders to fly into the enemy's rear and bite hard there. And veteran pikemen protected the shooters, who also reached the enemy in the most secluded corners. Now, analyzing intelligence reports in the guild, we realized that the Blue enemy is the weakest in terms of number of heroes and castles, which meant
that he has the most concentrated army among my enemies. It's time to deal with them. With our new teleport ability, it was no trouble for us to reach the Blue island, and we immediately flew to Sundax, who was firmly settled in Xabron with a decent army. Well, on the way, we sent a pack of bug-eyed cyclopes to the other world, but that was just for "warmth." After we deftly popped Sundax, we consulted with Arturius and decided there was no need to linger; let's fly to harass Red, and our beloved teleport sent us to Blackbridge castle on the last of the 4 islands.

Day 30. Without words, following a plan refined over a month, we take Blackbridge and immediately, recharging the teleport, fly down and see 3 red-feathered "friends." They were wrong to crowd so close; however, they realized this too late... We almost reached
Middlegate on this day! Meanwhile, on the island of barbarians in Xabron, I noticed one talented barbarian who performed a responsible task for me. His name was Tsabu. He gathered an army, learned Portal, and in one day tracked down the last of the blue mohawks—Vatavna. She submitted to young Tsabu almost
without resistance; BLUE is defeated!!

On the 31st day, Sir Gallant and Astra, who I had come to love for her storm, ran in from the south. The cursed sorceresses resurrected her because they knew she could tell them about us and our strengths.

And she told them... that there is nowhere left for them to struggle... In confirmation of her words, we sent Sir Gallant into a panicked flight, and again "put" Astra "into the ground," and this time much
deeper :D We immediately refreshed our strength in Blackbridge and flew to Middlegate. On this day, two of my detachments decided that there was too little sulfur in the kingdom and set off to obtain it. Luna and Tsabu did this.

My brain gave me no answer as to why they were doing this, but greed said: "More is never enough!!!"

Day 32... No forces could now hold us back from victory.

Arturius gave the order to search for and attack Red's last castle; I suggested to him that we have 3 jumps in reserve.

This means we must choose the search trajectory more carefully. He and I agreed on a southern direction. Making the first jump, we noticed Gallant, who had mounted his horse again and was running around us. With the second jump, our army stood before him.

- The djinns attacked first. They took out the long-range fairies.

- On the pikemen's turn, Arturius unleashed lightning on the squad of archers.

- Dragons finished the battle, simply swallowing the peasants.

The enemy's last hero was defeated. But before departing for another world, Gallant told us that only one port city remained and it was almost undefended. I personally believed him, but Arturius just killed him. And took from him the rabbit's foot because of which Sir was so lucky that he
remained as the last living enemy hero for so long.

Roughly estimating the city's position, we made the last jump and were not mistaken! NightShadow stood before us!! When we approached the wall, we almost wept... What a disgrace came out for our final battle! But since they came out, it means they were brave, meaning they shouldn't be humiliated.

Therefore, the djinns immediately flew to the tower and killed the fairies. After that, the archers were blocked by the djinns. They had no choice; they swung at the inhabitants of the iron lamp and were killed in return. Thus, on the 32nd day of our campaign, the last stronghold of enemy thoughts fell.

** In the end, building my game tactic out of habit for playing against a human—developing one hero

** to the maximum, I turned out to be a poor advisor to Arturius and among all advisors became as much as 15th :D

When Arturius offered me to rule any two islands of my choice, I told him never to divide these lands, no matter what friends he might have. Because friends will have children, but they may not be friends!! As for me, I equipped a boat and sailed to my island
to see Grandfather; I had something to tell him! Moreover, Natasha was waiting for me there, who promised to bear me a great warrior, black as night, but with red hair and a kind soul!;)

THIRD OFFLINE TOURNAMENT "Land O Plenty"

1st place: player Alex_R

Here's the strategy, in brief:
Immediately head right and up to gather gold... only recruited Elves and about 30 Butterflies... on day 2, I took the Gold Mine. We don't touch the Mercury near the Druids... otherwise, we won't have enough time.
The second Mage, with all the Gnomes and 50 Butterflies, heads to the Log Mine. Then, she joins 2 stacks of Archers and 1 stack of Wolves... Mage #1 goes up and joins the Ogres... from the Castle, Barbarian #1 emerges and spends the night at the mine (which was guarded by Ogres).
Day 4: Mage 1 gives the army to Barbarian #1 and gets into the boat... Barbarian fights Gargoyles and Ghosts, and on the last turn, he takes the Boots... ALL CHESTS ARE TAKEN FOR MONEY.
Day 5: Barbarian #1 clears the path to the portal (TAKES NOTHING EXTRA, neither Mercury nor money!!!) and stops one step away from the portal. Mage #1 sails to the Magic Hut... Mage 2 gives her all (except one for herself for the turn), Wolves, 1 Gnome, and all the Butterflies... the remaining Gnomes (about 70-80) and about 57 Archers are destroyed... Mage 1 sails as far as possible.

Day 6: Mage #1 lands near the Yellow Castle (Warlock)...
Barbarian #1 dives into the portal... emerges in the desert, defeats Red Hero #1, and rushes, defeating Normans, Ogres, and Thieves, to the Red Castle... defeats it and moves one square down diagonally...
Barbarian #2 and #3 are bought. #2 takes almost the entire army from Barbarian #1 and the Boots and gives part of the army and the Boots to Barbarian #3, and he himself runs to defeat Red Hero #2. Barbarian #3 runs straight to the portal (with the Boots).
Day 7: A difficult day... so much to defeat!
Barbarian #1 catches up to the last Hero #3 of the Red player and defeats him (gaining 10 skill points).
Barbarian #3 (who has the Boots) dives into the portal to the Green player and defeats the Green Castle...
Barbarian #2 dives into the portals and collects as much money as possible!
In the former Green Castle, 2 Barbarians #4 and #5 are built. Barbarian #3, on the last turn, gives the army, and they, working together, defeat the three heroes of Green (Knight #1; #2; #3). Green is defeated, as is Red...
Mage #1 defeats the Yellow Castle and Yellow Hero #1, who sailed into my boat, after first placing most of the army in the Castle (about 25 Wolves).
In the former Yellow Castle, we build Barbarian #6 (only 1100 coins left!!!... we take Wolves and defeat Yellow Hero #2... Victory...
Result: 4 Castles, 2 Mages, 6 Barbarians... Barbarian #1 gained 10 skill points... little Mercury... only 2 cauldrons were collected, and Mage #2 reached the second one on day 5, running after it with one Wolf!!!

Little tricks:
1) I removed the army (Archers and Gnomes) to slow down the development of Yellow...
2) Mage #1 specifically took 1 Gnome to have a small turn, and Yellow wouldn't run away from the Castle further than Barbarian could reach... repeatedly tested!!!
3) Using the arrow keys and the "move diagonally" buttons made it possible to collect some resources, as well as attack one hero, without being able to do so with the mouse!!!

All saves
Daily saves

5th place player BigAke

I'm not among the leaders, of course, but I also want to share my Walkthrough :D

Day 1:
Karlawn leaves the dwarves in the Castle, and with the help of 70 elves and 82 fairies
wipes out the orcs and gargoyles, and takes +1500 gold from the chest

Day 2:
1. Karlawn, with the remnants of the army (68 elves and 48 fairies), joins the swordsmen, takes the gold mine and, after dismissing the fairies, heads to meet the ghosts and gargoyles
2. We buy Luna and with an army of 72 dwarves and 20 fairies we wipe out the ogres, after which we aim to capture the lumber

Day 3:
1. Karlawn defeats both groups of adversaries, takes +2000 gold in the chest and stops one step away from the nomad boots
2. Luna captures the sawmill, takes +15 lumber, and moves toward the archers
3. We buy Sandro; he runs after Karlawn with 2 gargoyles

Day 4:
1. Karlawn takes the nomad boots, a chest with +1000 gold, and with an army of 59 elves and 19 swordsmen attacks the swordsmen, losing one swordsman in the battle
2. For the night, Sandro hands over the gargoyles to Karlawn, and takes the rest of the army himself
3. Luna takes +500 gold in the water mill, joins 57 archers and 31 wolves, and aims to take the campfire
4. We buy Barok. With 2 gargoyles, he picks up +15 stone, +13 logs and retreats to the castle

Day 5:
1. Luna takes +600 gold and +6 sulfur from the campfire and attacks the centaurs, gains experience, and reaches the shore
2. Sandro takes +1500 gold, wipes out the nomads and stops one step away from the griffins
3. We buy Vatavna and put her on the ship with 12 fairies
4. Barok collects resources (+6 mercury) and heads toward the gold mine
5. Karlawn, in slippers on bare feet, briskly runs toward the teleport, picking up +1500 gold and a pouch along the way

Day 6:
1. Sandro joins 14 griffins and runs to Karlawn, stopping one step away from her
2. Vatavna sails and stops at the shore, where Luna is waiting for her with the troops
3. Barok picks up +6 mercury and +500 gold and aims for the gems at the gem mine
4. Karlawn and Sandro split the troops: Sandro – 58 elves, Karlawn – 2 gargoyles, 17 swordsmen, 14 griffins, as well as the boots and the pouch.
Karlawn teleports to the desert, defeats the fairies, nomads and ogres, losing 3 griffins in these battles

Day 7:
1. Karlawn goes to the red player's castle, killing Astra (0-0-2-3, 18 fairies, 4 dwarves, 6 wolves) who happened to get in the way. Losses – 2 gargoyles and 1 griffin.
2. Barok stubbornly heads for the gems
3. Vatavna, having received troops (72 dwarves and 30 fairies) from Luna, lands by the yellow player's castle on the same day
4. Sandro teleports to the green player's castle, kills the ogres and aims for the castle

Day 8:
1. Luna goes to war against the minotaurs near the village
2. Barok takes +6 gems, +1000 gold and runs right toward the mercury
3. Sandro defeats Ambrosia in the green player's castle, losing 13 elves in the process, and without entering the castle, moves back toward the teleport
4. Karlawn attacks the red castle, losing the remaining griffins and 2 swordsmen
5. In the red castle, we buy Ariel and move her one step down
6. In the same place, we buy Antonio (Barbarian) and buy him a magic book and 7 trolls
7. Ariel takes the slippers from Karlawn and passes them to Antonio
8. Karlawn (0-0-4-5) with 15 swordsmen attacks Agar (0-0-3-3): 3 gargoyles, 9 wolves, 1 troll, 9 centaurs. Wins, losing 3 swordsmen
9. Antonio crushes the bandits by the village near the stone mine and aims for Tsabu – the last hero of the red player
10. Vatavna captures the yellow castle and heads right from the castle toward Krodo – one of the 2 remaining living heroes of the yellow player (Krodo, on his turn, tries to slip past Vatavna to the empty castle, but stops a couple of steps away from it)

Day 9:
1. Luna wipes out the minotaurs and takes +3 crystals and +1000 gold
2. Barok takes +1000 gold in the chest and +5 mercury
3. We dismiss Ariel and buy Kelzen (22 goblins, 4 orcs), take the remaining 15 goblins and 5 orcs in the castle and transfer the troops to Antonio (Tsabu, losing his head, rushed toward Antonio himself, but 7 trolls are not enough to wipe him out)
4. In the Knight castle, we buy back Astra and Sandro gives her all the elves in exchange for 1 fairy (as we assumed, the green player fell for our fake retreat and moved closer within striking distance). Astra (0-0-2-3) 12 fairies, 3 dwarves, 45 elves attacks Natasha (0-0-2-3) 16 fairies, 4 dwarves, 4 pikemen. Wins, losing 3 elves and 9 fairies.
Green is destroyed!
5. Karlawn goes to the gazebo and increases skills (1-0-4-5)
6. Antonio (2-1-1-1) with 7 trolls, 9 orcs and 36 goblins wipes out Tsabu (2-1-1-1): 10 wolves, 65 goblins, 19 orcs. After the battle, only 6 trolls of Antonio are left alive.
Red is destroyed!
Antonio picks up +1500 gold in the casket above the dragon utopia
7. Vatavna (0-0-2-3) 57 dwarves wipes out Krodo (0-0-3-2) who rushed to the castle: 1 gargoyle, 5 centaurs and 21 goblins. Vatavna loses 3 dwarves in the process
8. We dismiss Kelzen and buy back Rasmont in the Wizard castle. We buy him troops with all the remaining money and with 12 centaurs and 14 gargoyles we head to kill Ergon (the last hero of the red player), hiding in the bushes to the left of the castle

Final battle with Ergon

Rasmont (0-0-3-2)
12 centaurs
14 gargoyles

Ergon (2-1-1-1)
20 goblins
5 orcs
6 griffins

Battle:
R: kill 3 griffins with lightning + another griffin with gargoyles
E: retaliatory strike by griffins and goblins wipes out 3 gargoyles, which in response kill 11 goblins
R: centaurs shoot at griffins
E: griffins wipe out 4 centaurs
R: finish off griffins with lightning, gargoyles kill 2 orcs
E: weakness on gargoyles, orcs kick the gargoyles
R: blessing on gargoyles, gargoyles wipe out 2 orcs, and centaurs finish off the last orc

Victory!:smile14:
9 days
Strongest hero – Karlawn (1-0-4-5)

4th offline tournament "COMPANY" - Stage 1.

1st place: VDV_forever

Greetings, dear fans of offline Heroes 1 tournaments!

We present to you a walkthrough of the first stage of the "Company" tournament by VDV_forever.

Tactics.

The obvious tactic on this map was to complete the second, winning objective, namely: capturing the "Predvarie" village in the minimum number of days. The second main goal, and essentially the task (since completing it within a certain number of days was obvious), was for one of the heroes to gain the maximum number of skills. It should be noted that I allowed for the possibility of improving the skill score by exactly 1 point, but, unfortunately, I didn't have time to check this task, so I did it after the results were summarized, when I shared first place with Alex_R (I hope he will also share his description with us).

Achieving this goal can be done by attacking the first dragon guarding "Predvarie" with the maximum number of homogeneous troops, which were a crowd of angry peasants with a small additional force serving to distract the dragons from the temptation to attack the peasants.

Strategy.

By carefully studying the map, it is easy to calculate that the maximum amount of XP a hero can gain is 4720 XP!

Obviously, even the fastest hero, boosted with boots, cannot visit/kill all the designated objects on the map in 2 days and gain the maximum amount of XP indicated above, i.e., gain level 5, which is 4500 XP, only if the hero is leveled up on all the main bonuses (4720+(45-99)*-4500). You can only skip objects that, in total, will give less than 315 XP. Therefore, there was not much point in trying hard, since the maximum result was achieved.

Note - (45-90)* is the hero's experience at the start.
Leveling up the hero to level 4 (3200 XP) was not particularly difficult, since the total XP is significantly less than for level 5.
Mercury can also be collected in 2 days, obviously only 9, so one of the runners was specifically trained for this purpose.

Day 1

Hero 1: Arturius
Leaves all his initial troops in the starting castle "Dusk", except for 1 peasant (3 archers, 44 peasants).
Goes down and takes 700 gold.

In the "Dusk" castle, the 2nd hero, Dmitri, is hired, who also leaves his initial troops in the castle garrison (4 archers, 37 peasants). He takes 1 step to the left.

In the "Dusk" castle, the 3rd hero, Krodo, is hired, who adds 7 archers from the garrison to his initial troops (3 gargoyles, 8 centaurs). He takes 1 step diagonally southwest.
In the "Dusk" castle, the 4th hero, Barok, is hired with an initial army of 3 gargoyles and 10 centaurs. Barok, while in the castle, transfers all his troops to Krodo, except for 1 centaur.

Krodo, with the army (7 archers, 7 gargoyles, 17 centaurs), attacks 21 archers guarding the boots. After the battle, Krodo's army has slightly decreased (6 archers, 5 gargoyles, 16 centaurs). Having taken the artifact BOOTS and the campfire (+600 gold, 6 ore), Krodo takes his last step to the left for today, where he spends the night (see the map).

Dmitri takes all the troops from Krodo, plus the invaluable artifact BOOTS! He takes 1 step diagonally northeast, where he falls asleep (see the map).

Barok takes a step to the left, and Arturius gives him 1 gargoyle and takes 1 centaur, thereby making Barok a good runner. Arturius blesses him to collect the maximum amount of everyone's favorite mercury!
Barok falls asleep near the gargoyles (one step away from the attack), which guard the passage to the Dragon. He also falls asleep there.

In the "Dusk" castle, the 5th hero, Tyro (3 archers, 41 peasants), is hired.
Arturius, with his last step, takes all the peasants from Tyro, and in return blesses him for great deeds and gives him the BOOTS and 4 gargoyles + 1 centaur.
After the blessing and transfer, Arturius gets tired and takes a break (see the map).

Tyro, blessed by Arturius, defeats the goblins, losing 1 centaur. He is left with 4 gargoyles, thereby making Tyro a very fast hero! He gains experience at the chest (+1000 experience), gaining +1 to defense, learns at the gazebo (+1000 experience), gaining +1 to attack, and falls asleep near the coast (see the map).

Day 1 ended with this.

Day 2

Arturius transfers all his troops to Tyro.
In the "Dusk" castle, the 6th hero, Hector (5 archers, 36 peasants), is hired, and +12 peasants are hired in the castle (with the remaining money). Having taken all the peasants from the garrison, Hector visits the House, where 34 more peasants join him. With all the troops, he returns to the "Dusk" castle, where he runs out of moves.

Dmitri takes all the troops from Hector, except for 1 peasant, and waits for Krodo.
Krodo, who ran past, receives all the troops from Hector, except for 1 peasant.
Krodo, in turn, transfers all the troops to Tyro.

Tyro with the final army:
16 centaurs;
4 gargoyles;
14 archers;
202 peasants.
Ruthlessly kills the gargoyles standing in the passage, losing precious troops (11 peasants, 1 centaur, 1 archer).

Having visited the fairy circle (to hit better with peasants :D), Tyro easily kills the purple Dragon, losing only gargoyles and archers.

Barok, meanwhile, seeing that the passage is clear, freely takes mercury +4, +5.

Tyro completes the mission, defeating the guard of the village, and thus winning the first map (stage 1) scenario.
After taking "Predvarie", Tyro gains level 4 (+1 attack).

Thank you for your attention.

P.S. I did not try to dig up heroes with the maximum number of initial troops.;)

P.S.S. Saves are attached.;)

Map:



Saves:



Sincerely, VDV_forever

Stage one. Prelude.

Day 1. FIRST.

At the start, we have 10,000 gold and Arthur (45K, 3L).
He keeps a peasant and runs south for gold (+700 = 10,700).
He goes east for peasants (+34K).

He buys Dimitri (38K, 4L). 8200
He buys 12 peasants in the castle (-240 = 7960), takes the army left by Arthur, and attacks the goblins.
He waits.

He buys Sandro (7K, 4G). 5460
He keeps a gargoyle and runs northwest, takes wood, and stops under the gargoyles.

He buys Hector (36K, 5L). 2960
He keeps two gargoyles and a peasant and attacks the peasants near the Mine.
After the movement is over, he dismisses the peasant.

He buys Maximus (35K, 5L). 460
He takes everything that is in the garrison.
He exchanges all of Dimitri's army for a gargoyle and runs west.

Dimitri continues his turn.
He visits the gazebo (+1000 EXP), takes the chest (+1000 EXP). Reaches level three.
He turns back.

Day 2. LAST.

Hector takes the chest (+1000 gold). Total 2460
He builds an Archery Range. (-1000 = 1460)
He buys archers. (-1200 = 260)
Arthur runs into the city, takes the archers. He gives the entire army to Dimitri.
Maximus gives the army to Sandro. Dimitri takes the army from the warlock and gives it to Hector.
Hector (7 centaurs, 25 archers, 195 peasants, 4 gargoyles) attacks the gargoyle (losses: 1 centaur and 2 archers).
Dimitri takes 22 out of 23 archers from Hector.
Hector attacks the Dragon. Formation: 6 centaurs, 195 peasants, 1 archer, 4 gargoyles.
The gargoyle hits the dragon (so that it spends its retaliatory attack).
The dragon hits the centaurs – it destroys them all.
The peasants attack the dragon.
The archer attacks the dragon.
The gargoyle attacks the dragon and dies from the retaliatory attack.
The dragon attacks the archer.
The peasants attack the dragon.
The dragon attacks the peasants. It receives damage in return.
The peasants finish off the dragon.

Maximus takes the archers from Dimitri and gives them to Sandro.
Sandro heads to the mercury, and along the way, Hector takes the archers from him.
Sandro takes two vials of mercury (+4 + 5).
Hector attacks the elf village and defeats it with the help of archers

4th offline "Company" tournament, stage 7 (held as part of the 6th stage of the annual Van Canigem tournament)

Those interested can check out my walkthrough of the map. A full set of saves is attached.

About the map

At the start, we have our own clear respawn with plenty of free or nearly
free chests and piles of gold. The density of neutral monsters is low. The enemy is far away, and reaching them seems like a very long process. Fortunately, in the guild of one of the home castles, the Portal spell is found. However, the guard at the enemy castle is serious; therefore, it is necessary to combine rapid magic development with the buildup of combat strength.

About troops and magic

At the start, we have a decent army for clearing from the starting castle, plus growth on day 3. For the main battle, it was necessary to choose a tactic for destroying a substantial stack of enemy dragons: a hoard of troops from several home castles, dragons from an enemy captured castle, or a strike stack of peasants. The latter option was chosen, largely because I wanted to fight with these rarely used units. Magical support on the map consists of the Portal spell, and in battle, Berserk, Paralysis, and Bless helped. An excellent set, it must be said.

About heroes

On such a map, heroes are our everything, as they allow us to quickly gather
necessary resources and bring much-needed peasants. During the
walkthrough, heroes were purchased 19 times, of which 13 times Knights. A sorceress (3 Knowledge) and a Barbarian as a combatant were also necessary. In the other 4 cases, maximum starting movement was required, which presented some problems since there were 8 Warlocks for the computer. The final battle was conducted by a level 4 hero. Maximum Attack parameter was required from him; Crag Hack was the only hero who received the first 3 upgrades in Attack.

About resources

The main problem is the absence of precious gems for the guild at the respawn and the distance to the corresponding mine. There are no problems with everything else.

Day 1

We buy Hector and Whisper. Kilburn and Hector each get a gargoyle and
run for money.
Hector takes 4 piles of gold +600,+1000,+1000,+600 and runs up.
Kilburn picks up 2 piles +500,+1000 and a chest +2000.
Whisper clears the peasants, campfire +6 mercury,+600, breaks through the spearmen
with an army of 17 archers, 5 spearmen, 4 swordsmen, 1 peasant, 6
centaurs, loses a peasant and centaurs, takes a chest diagonally
down.
We buy Karlawn (the only one without dwarves), who on the fairy picks up
the freed campfire +6 sand,+600 and a chest +1500.
We build a castle (we will conditionally call it the second).
In the 2nd castle, we buy Tsabu (the only one without orcs), who runs
northeast and takes a chest +2000.
There we also buy Ambrosia, who on the goblin follows the path to
the neutral village.
Last comes Maximus and with the goblin stands before the orcs.
Day result: 2 castles and 7 heroes. Well, not bad.

Day 2

Maximus takes a chest +1000; now there is money for another hero.
Gallant is bought out and with an army of 130 peasants, 11 archers, 22
goblins joins 15 orcs.
Maximus carries the orcs to Ambrosia, who captures the village.
Whisper joins 31 thieves, picks up a campfire +6 crystals,+600 and a chest +2000.
Hector grabs a chest +2000 and 14 stone near the 2nd castle.
Karlawn runs east; there a chest +2000 and the path to the stone
mine await her.
Kilburn takes a pile +700 and heads down for 3 piles with +15,+12,16
wood.
Tsabu takes 2 chests of +1500 each and freezes near the third.
Now there is everything necessary to plant the 3rd castle, in which we buy Arturius (after first firing Gallant) and a few archers.
Arturius takes the army from Ambrosia and with 17 archers and 15 orcs runs northwest for an artifact, picking up a chest +2000.
We build riders in the first castle.
Ambrosia with the goblin heads to the precious gems mine.
Result: 8 heroes and 3 castles; now we can operate across the entire respawn.

Day 3

We generate peasant doubling in the castle buildings.
Ambrosia continues the path to the mine.
Arturius hits archers, picks up an artifact +750 per day, campfire +5
stone,+500 and a chest +1000, enters the dwelling. An army of
20 archers and 15 orcs is obtained.
Hector enters the 2nd castle and with 18 archers and a gargoyle hits dwarves,
takes an artifact +500 per day and campfire +5 mercury,+500.
Tsabu picks up chests +1000, +2000 and +9 wood. (This is clearly not
optimal here, as first the hero will not fully use his move,
and then he will be short).
Whisper gives spearmen, swordsmen, and thieves to Kilburn, who hits
gargoyles for a scroll +5 Knowledge and a chest. Then both run up, but in such
a way that Whisper keeps the gargoyle.
Maximus makes his way toward the compass.
Karlawn takes 16 stone and a chest 1500 near the sulfur mine.
We build a level 1 guild in the second castle.

Day 4

Kilburn hits dwarves, buys an artifact +1000 per day, takes a chest +1000.
Whisper takes the army from him and carries it to the first castle. Kilburn is fired.
Arturius runs to the 3rd castle.
In it we buy Tiro, 15 archers, and 6 spearmen. Tiro takes
the troops from Arturius and passes them to Maximus. Arturius is fired.
Maximus with 215 peasants, 35 archers, 15 orcs, 6 spearmen
joins 14 swordsmen, but unfortunately, he is short one
move cell to take the compass.
Ambrosia takes a chest +1000 and the coveted mine.
Karlawn gets money from 2 chests +1000, +2000 and heads southwest.
Crag Hack (our hero!) appears. Having received troops and artifacts from Whisper,
he (after buying a book) with 8 riders breaks through spearmen, picks up a chest for 1000 experience (+1 Attack) and runs to the shrine with Berserk.
Whisper is fired.
Tsabu visits the statue and freezes before the minotaurs.
In the 2nd castle, Gallant is bought, who takes archers from Hector.
Hector grabs a chest +2000 and stops near the cemetery.
We build a level 2 guild.

Day 5

Ambrosia takes chests +1500, +2000 and a shield +2 Defense, then is fired.
Karlawn grabs a pile and a chest of +1000 each, runs up.
Maximus moves toward Tiro, who takes the army from him and brings it to the 3rd castle. In it Haart is bought out and passes the army (except orcs) to Hector. Tiro and Haart are fired.
In the 1st castle we buy Kilburn. He passes the army (together with remaining
thieves for speeding up several heroes; generally in the walkthrough it is assumed that if a fast unit can be given to a hero without losses, it is done) to Crag, while picking up a campfire. Then he is fired.
Crag Hack learns Berserk, gives the army to Gallant and stands before the second
castle.
Gallant carries the fighters to Hector, but keeps the peasants for himself.
Hector himself first gives them along with the compass that arrived through third parties to Tsabu, who hits minotaurs with an army of 88 archers, 18
spearmen, 24 swordsmen, 1 goblin, 8 riders (losing a goblin and
a knight, sob-sob). Then Tsabu returns the army to Hector and on a gargoyle flies for gems, picking up a campfire along the way.
Whisper appears in the 2nd castle and with a gargoyle runs up, takes a campfire
+6 crystals,+600.
We buy Dimitri, who takes 9 stone and a chest +1500.
A level 3 guild is built.

Day 6

Karlawn takes 6 sand and is fired.
Tsabu reaches 2 piles of precious gems with 3 pieces each.
Maximus runs up for a chest +2000.
Hector passes the army to Gallant, who via Whisper
(who managed to take an artifact morale +1) reaches the 2nd castle. There Tiro is bought and troops are delivered to Dimitri. Tiro is fired.
Dimitri breaks through swordsmen, grabs a campfire and artifact +2 Knowledge,
returns to the castle.
There we buy Ambrosia; he on a gargoyle enters the mill +2 precious gems.
A level 4 guild is built.
Gem appears, passes artifacts from Dimitri to Crag and on a gargoyle flies
down.
Crag (Knowledge 8) leaves in the 2nd castle 5 archers, 8 spearmen (+thieves), unbought peasants. With the rest of the army he jumps to Blackwind and captures it (+1 Attack). He spends the night there.
Whisper spends the night in the 2nd castle.

Day 7

The final chord.
All heroes at the respawn conduct a simple operation as a result of which Gem ends up with the remaining troops from all 3 castles, 5 huts and another 2 knights bought on the same day. Plus, an artifact +1 Luck beaten along the way is delivered to her.
She delivers all this to Crag.
Crag Hack with a final army of 997 peasants, 105 archers, 24 spearmen,
23 swordsmen, 8 riders jumps in the direction of Alamar's castle. On
the way he meets enemy hero Castor and trades 20 archers for the
next level (+1 Attack), a sword +3 Attack and an axe +2 Attack.
As a final action, Crag Hack attacks Alamar's castle and captures it.

Victory.

Final result: 7 days, 12-4-1-9, 6 mercury.

9th offline tournament "Lord of the Swamps"

1st place VDV_forever

Introduction

When I said on the forum that the tournament is difficult, I meant its difficulty in terms of optimizing the result. That is, for me personally, the tournament turned out to be one of the longest, requiring 4 days of real time (thankfully, the New Year holidays allowed me to do this :) ).

The first rough draft was done in 1 hour, with a result of 9 days. The second run was more thoughtful and took longer, resulting in 8 days. Having achieved 8 days, I began to think about the minimum possible result on this map, and the more I thought, the more it frightened me. It frightened me because the theoretical limit on the map is 6 days. Nevertheless, pushing aside that wild thought, I decided to first aim for 7, and I must say, I did it quite quickly by preventing the computer from straying too far from its home castles. After resting a bit and celebrating the New Year once more with relatives, I made titanic efforts to achieve a result of 6 days, but in vain; I was short by 500 gold to take all the castles on day 6. But even if I had guessed where to get the missing amount, another thing became unclear: how to kill all the rapidly multiplying computer heroes? In the end, I noted for myself that this is practically impossible!

And then came the moment when it hit me to improve secondary skills, specifically to implement the 2nd victory criterion regulated in the HW rules (taking into account the artifacts equipped on the hero).

Here I had to not only rack my brain over this problem but also think about how to keep the computer within reach. Thus, a result of 7 days was achieved with a sum of primary characteristics equal to 11 (previously it was 6), which made me unspeakably happy! Realizing that I could improve by another 2, I played again and finally succeeded! After another drinking session (as the holidays continued, and my wife was already angry with me), I decided to sit at this map again, since having free time suggested that skills could be improved by another 1 by taking a chest of 1500 experience instead of money! And it was this fact that turned me into a complete maniac; I had to make titanic efforts to develop a strategy where the sum of skills would equal 15 instead of the assumed 14, and also apply a cunning method that I had not used in tournaments before due to lack of necessity. Not to mention the real time spent implementing the plan...

That is, for 7 days but with improved skills, there are 4 runs: with 6, 11, 13, and 15 skills, all using different strategies;)

Strategy

1) In the home castle, as well as in captured castles, we build and buy nothing.
2) Money is spent exclusively on buying heroes.
3) With the main 3 heroes, we take nothing unnecessary, moving only toward the castles.
4) The "Father" must definitely take boots, a chest, destroy monsters and heroes, and take the farthest castle.
5) The "Father" must be given the "Great Scroll of Knowledge" artifact, which increases knowledge by 5 units.
6) All main breakthroughs are made using the dragon, who is passed along the chain in the first few days.
7) At the start of the day, all heroes should, if possible, be accelerated by fast monsters.
8) Computer heroes must not stray far.

Day 1

After analysis, it becomes clear that the second hero can appear only in one case: if the starting hero Ariy takes 2 chests located exactly south of the starting castle, which we successfully do without problems by wiping out a pack of ogres. The 2 chests bring a profit of +3000 gold to the treasury.

Naturally, we buy a Barbarian class hero – Atlas; this is obvious since only Barbarians lack a terrain penalty.
After him, not a Barbarian but a Warlock must appear to accelerate other heroes using gargoyles. In this case, Rasmont was under that slot.

Atlas, leaving the entire army in the castle, takes one goblin and moves 2 steps left and one up, ending up right behind the hill by the castle. He does this so that on the next day he can attack the ogres to the north who block the passage in the southern direction. The calculation was made so that Atlas would not make unnecessary moves, while Ariy would spend his entire movement allowance exactly for exchanging with him.

Turn transition:
When I said that the game version could be determined 100%, I meant the following:
- all Computer heroes on turn transition in the Bukovska version 1.1 leave slow units, which are orcs 100%; in the English version 1.0 (DOS), he will take them with him!
- when attacking ogres, we see the battlefield: in the English version 1.1, only a stump stands as an obstacle; in the Bukovska version, there are 2 snags and a bush between them.

Green: Sundax takes the ore mine and heads east, spending the night at a chest.

Red: Antony takes mercury and the sawmill.

Yellow: Ergon takes the ore mine and heads south.
There was practically no regeneration since there are very few computers. It is essential that Green runs east for free troops – thieves (wagons). This is the first important point! Because if he doesn't run there on the first day, he will definitely send other heroes the next day, and by day 7 he won't have time to return to the castle, and we don't have an extra 2500 gold to catch him.

P.S. It made me smile that buildings are completely absent in the starting castle, thanks Kyle!

Gold 500.

Day 2

Ariy spends his entire movement allowance (as calculated) on exchanging with Atlas.

Atlas moves 2 steps up, one step northwest and attacks the ogres, earning 680 experience. He increases the treasury by 1500 by taking a chest. With 3000 gold in the treasury, we hire Rasmont (4 gargoyles, 9 centaurs); under him is Barbarian – Kelzen (although it's better to dig up Yog since his starting army is larger than Kelzen's)!

Next is a very important 2nd point: Rasmont leaves the entire army in the castle and with 1 gargoyle heads WEST, moving 3 steps! Atlas moves close to Rasmont (see figure 1).

Rasmont, specifically Rasmont, exchanges with Atlas, swapping the gargoyle for a dragon! The remaining moves are just enough for Rasmont to easily wipe out the Elves and take a chest, thus replenishing the treasury by another 2000 gold!

The amount obtained is just enough for one more hero – a Barbarian, who becomes the pre-selected Kelzen (3 orcs, 23 goblins) – FATHER!

Atlas spends his remaining movement allowance (2 diagonal steps) moving south.

Father, transferring the entire army formed from purchased heroes from the garrison and leaving only 1 gargoyle in the garrison (necessary for the next hero), namely: 2 gargoyles, 45 goblins, 6 orcs, 9 centaurs, runs to exchange with Ariy (gives him 1 gargoyle, receives 1 green in return) and attacks the nomads who guard an important passage to the EAST!

The simple tactic leads to victory with losses; only 1 gargoyle, 3 orcs, and 31 goblins remain, which is exactly what we need. He dismisses the remaining army except for one single gargoyle.
Then he takes the chest "above," enriching the treasury by 1500 gold. I had to take money because monetary inflows from the castle on the next day would not have allowed hiring another hero, and there was no prospect of obtaining 1500 gold on day 3.
Thus, Ariy, Atlas, and Kelzen were accelerated by gargoyles by the end of day 2, while Rasmont remained with the dragon, as he must!

Turn transition:
The computer hires a second hero with 100% probability, which is very unfavorable for us, but what can be done.
Green: Sundax grabs a chest and moves toward the wagons. Tsabu takes the sawmill.
Red: Antony collects ore and gems. Jojosh takes the ore mine.
Yellow: Ergon crystals and wood, ignoring gems for obvious reasons. Craig Hack takes the sawmill.

No regeneration!

Gold 1500.

Day 3

Father, accelerated by gargoyles, runs east without stopping, spending the night 2 cells away from wolves.

Rasmont has just enough moves to exchange troops with Ariy (Dragon for gargoyle).

Atlas, knowing that nomads in a quantity of 25 have a status loyal to joining, runs toward them. He stops 1 step before attacking.

Ariy, following the same procedure as Rasmont, receives a gargoyle instead of a dragon during the transfer with Atlas.

A satisfied Atlas easily joins the nomads and, with words of gratitude, passes the dragon back.

Having funds of 2500 gold, we hire Yog (Sandro is under him). We give him the pre-left gargoyle, and leave his army in the garrison, although they could be dismissed, which wouldn't change anything. We run after Father.

In the end, such a strategy leads to the formation of an excellent chain for passing the dragon from the farthest hero to Father on the next day!

Turn transition:
The computer hires a third hero with 100% probability, which makes me even angrier, but there's nothing to be done! Total: 9 enemy heroes!
Green: Sundax still moves toward the wagons. Tsabu runs south and grabs a chest. A lady named Trojan also goes south, grabbing sulfur.
Red: Antony takes gems and the "Great Scroll of Knowledge" artifact! Jojosh mercury and a chest. Barok wood from the south.
Yellow: Ergon clears his territory in the north, grabs mercury and gems. Craig Hack grabs gem deposits in the south. Lord Haart grabs a chest in the east.

No regeneration!

Gold 0.

Added after 38 seconds

Day 4

We execute the plan we've been planning for 3 days: passing the purple dragon.

Ariy runs to Rasmont, stopping 2 cells short; Rasmont takes the dragon from Ariy and passes it to Yog, and Yog in turn – to Father!

Father attacks the wolves and earns 520 experience, TAKES THE EXPERIENCE CHEST +1500 Exp (+ 1 attack, +1 defense) - a very important 2nd point, as a result of which skills were increased.

Knowing that we'll have to pay for boots, we leave Kelzen alone for a while.

The role of money tycoon is played by Atlas, who easily takes 2 chests (+1000 and +1500) on the way to Green's castle.
We return again to Father.

The 3rd and perhaps one of the most important points: DO NOT JOIN THE SWORDSMEN, but attack the ogres who are ready to join; knowing how slow they are even if strong, we kindly refuse and use them for experience +400 Exp.

For 2000 gold, we take boots and sleep near the mercury.
Rasmont uses his remaining 3 moves to go East, following the main heroes in hopes of taking a stray pile of gold and thus slightly easing the life of player Yog; following FATHER, he enters the swamp and goes along the right side.

Turn transition:

Green: Sundax, finally reaching the wagons, turns back, intending to take the djinns guarded by riders (but due to computer suicide, this was not destined to happen since Atlas disrupted his plans). Tsabu takes the campfire and turns north for a chest!. Trojan takes ore and, realizing that the swamp is not her element, also goes north for a chest.

Red: Antony runs down. Jojosh takes the northern chest near the castle and heads toward the eastern chest. Barok takes the southern chest and heads south for the "necklace" artifact.

Yellow: Ergon moves from one swamp to another, grabbing remaining resources and a campfire. Craig Hack grabs ore and mercury and heads for a chest. Lord Haart grabs a chest by the castle and heads toward the southeastern swamp.
What a greedy, smart computer!

There was only one regeneration: green Tsabu must go north, not south - this is the 4th mandatory point!

Gold 1500.

Day 5

Ariy, realizing that the treasury needs gold more than ever, rushes with all his might for the northern gold hidden in a chest guarded by dragons.

Atlas cannot be stopped; he heads toward Green's castle and, before the decisive battle, decides to spend the night under an oak tree.

Rasmont, also realizing the money problems, runs to the swamp for gold supposedly guarded by swordsmen (whom FATHER ignored), sleeping one step away from it.

Father takes mercury +5 and joins 11 nomads who nicely block the exit from the central swamp.

Yog takes all the nomads from Father.

Father hits dwarves +380 Exp (+1 attack) and sleeps 1 step from the gem mine.

Yog sleeps by the statue (Now I realize that it should have been visited the next day to make life easier during the castle storm, but in principle, I managed without it).

Turn transition:
Green: Sundax takes wood and his moves are just enough to reach his own castle the next day. Tsabu takes a chest and runs east for another chest!. Trojan, apparently calculating that the castle is under threat, takes a chest by the castle and goes on defense.
Red: Antony takes ore and heads up for the last resources in the form of a pile of gold on the swamp. Jojosh collects the last resources at the castle: gems and a chest. Barok takes gems and makes a stop 2 steps from the "Necklace" artifact.
Yellow: Ergon's actions are quite adequate (acts like an avid offline player), runs up grabbing crystals and ignoring ore (apparently he already has enough). Craig Hack takes a chest and heads for the next one, located south of Lord Haart's castle; Haart takes mercury and heads for the "Powerful Scroll of Knowledge" artifact.

Regeneration was again with Green: Tsabu and Sundax had to stand as shown in Figure 2 – mandatory point #6!

Gold 2500.

Day 6

Ariy takes a chest, enriching the kingdom by 100 gold and heading toward the gold by the unicorns.

Atlas attacks Green's castle, in whose garrison Trojan stands, the 1st hero out of 9!

Atlas: 25 nomads.
Trojan: 17 fairies, 4 dwarves, 5 wolves, 11 orcs, 6 goblins.
Turn 1:
Nomads move to the 2nd column from below. Fairies, archers, and orcs attack, taking 3 nomads.
Turn 2:
Kill fairies. Archers and orcs kill another 2 nomads.
Turn 3:
The wall is breached, we kill wolves; remaining moves are automatic.
Remainder: 12 nomads.

Rasmont on the central swamp takes 2 piles of gold, 500 in each.
Kelzen (FATHER) joins 10 riders. And moving via keyboard, attacks Ergon, the 2nd hero out of 9. Earning 581 Exp from Ergon, Father joins 21 bandits, then attacks dwarves, increasing his IQ by another 460 Exp. Not stopping there, he attacks nomads who block the way to the northern swamps +400 Exp (+1 Attack). Ignoring 7 mercury, he sleeps near an inconspicuous bush by the sulfur mine.

We don't touch Yog for now; we leave him for last and will observe the computer's behavior depending on how we move Yog.

In Green's castle, we hire Sandro (Falagar is under him).

Taking all troops from Atlas, leaving him only 3 nomads (although it should have been 4 or 5), Sandro leaves in the castle garrison 4 nomads, 3 gargoyles and 10 centaurs, keeping only 5 nomads for himself!

And HERE COMES THE MOST IMPORTANT MOMENT IN THE GAME - 7!
Sandro attacks green Tsabu with 5 nomads!... and... pays him off, spending exactly 500 gold!!!

The remaining 2500 gold is just enough to buy Falagar (who is under him no longer matters).

Falagar takes 3 gargoyles and 4 nomads from the garrison, leaving 10 centaurs in the castle garrison. Thus, there are 20 centaurs in the garrison.

Falagar takes 2 chests already on enemy territory (taking 1 chest exclusively via keyboard) 2000+2000 gold (see figure 2).

After experiments with Yog, the preferred option was passing through the swamp, although as it turned out later, this had no significance...

Thus, Yog sleeps 7 steps in a straight line from Yellow's castle.

Turn transition:

Green: Here two developments are possible and both are positive.

1) Sundax attacks his own, now our castle Sundkaser!
Using centaurs and the castle archers, we easily shoot down all his troops.
Tsabu meanwhile either attacks Atlas (where he also suffers defeat) or goes for artifacts and a chest, but still ends up within reach! Option 1 occurred. That is, the 3rd hero out of 9 was killed!

2) Sundax attacks his own, now our castle Sundkaser! Breaking the wall, he kills more than 3 centaurs, but still loses the battle.
Tsabu then with 100% probability attacks the castle and dies in 2 turns.

Red: Antony, apparently realizing that FATHER is already close, rushes with all his might to his home castle, ignoring gold.
Jojosh runs into the castle, gathers archers and wolf cubs, and most likely rides for mercury.
Barok, having taken the "Necklace" artifact, gets away from me, realizing that he's finished on the next turn.

Yellow: Craig Hack sweeps all chests in the south.
Lord Haart takes the "Powerful Scroll of Knowledge" artifact and a chest and moves very far from the castle, which is not very good. And all my attempts to force him to go for mercury were futile.
On top of everything, the computer buys another hero – Castor, who, taking orcs, wolves, and archers, runs northwest for resources and also ends up very far from the castle.

Regeneration was with Yellow: It was interesting which hero the computer bought and where he ran! Characteristically, the computer clearly did not fear my hero Yog, unlike when Yog arrived at the castle with Nomads and swordsmen (in the passage before).

Gold 4000.

Day 7

Gold 6000

Ariy takes the last pile of gold on the swamp +600.

Yog attacks Yellow's castle "Dragon's Fang" (4 ogres in garrison). Without straining, he wipes them out with losses. Total: 9 nomads. The main thing is that during the battle, the wall is breached on the 1st or 2nd turn.

Who do we hire in the captured castle? Of course, Sandro, who paid his way off on day 6 with a full movement allowance and 5 nomads!

Sandro (specifically Sandro, not Yog) takes 5 nomads from Yog! Now Sandro has 10 nomads! 3 of which he leaves in the castle garrison.

Yog with 4 nomads attacks Craig Hack as his last step (already the 4th hero out of 10!) and easily and effortlessly wipes out his entire army consisting of 25 goblins (by the way, it's possible to win with only 3).

Father, at a right angle (via keyboard), attacks Barok (the 5th hero out of already 10!!!), and as soon as the turn reaches him, he immediately flees (buying him is obviously forbidden by rules)... nevertheless, 50 Exp for 10 centaurs are still given.

Then also at a right angle (via Keyboard 2) we attack Jojosh (6th hero out of 10), whom we wipe out in auto-battle, losing 11 thieves and receiving 769 Exp. The remaining moves are just enough to attack the castle! Its defense also falls in auto-battle, +720 Exp (Attack +1). Losses no longer matter.

In the captured red castle, we buy a Warlock hero – Visper.
Visper in auto-battle hits the last red one – Antony (7th hero out of 10) and takes from him the coveted artifact adding a full 5 units to knowledge (Great Scroll of Knowledge)! He successfully passes it to the main hero Kelzen, whose sum of primary characteristics reaches 15 (6+2+1+6), and the hero level is 6!

Sandro, leaving 3 nomads in the castle, attacks Castor with 7 and using spells "Blessing", "Protection" and "Curse" sends the latter into oblivion (8th hero out of 10).

In the "Dragon's Fang" castle, Georgios is hired, who with 3 nomads and 19 goblins easily wipes out the last yellow Lord Haart (9th hero out of 10). He attacks through trees via keyboard!
Atlas finishes off the last enemy green hero Tsabu (10 out of 10, the last enemy hero).

Victory occurs on day 7, skills 15, mercury 5.

Gold 1100

Respectfully, VDV_forever