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I've figured out the Paragon map....
There aren't many difficult battles; mostly you just need to understand how to act, and then it's just clicking until you win...
I already talked about the beginning earlier, now I'll try to outline everything in detail (let me say right away that I'm writing for an honest game, without bug-using).
First of all, secondary skills:
A must-have on such a map is Logistics and Pathfinding (lava, swamp, snow, water, sand — the map has everything, and you really don't want to slow down)
Logistics is available from the start, while pathfinding can be obtained easily on your own;
Mandatory: Wisdom (from the start), Water and Earth (given via the hut);
Then you can think about:
They offer us Archery, Offense, and Defense, BUT:
The Fire skill or Intelligence will be very useful; it'll be easier to progress with them...
A lot in the game will be based on archery, and without defense it will be bad, so I suggest not taking offense and archery immediately from the huts, but seeing which skills fit better later, i.e., Int/Fire and Archery/Attack — any combination will be better than archery and attack without intelligence/fire.
Do NOT choose these secondary skills: Leadership, Navigation, Tactics, Air — none of these will bring any benefit on this map...
Moving on — artifacts:
There are plenty of them in the game....
I advise not to sell artifacts immediately, but to give everything unnecessary to one-off heroes (buy out all heroes who bring resources or income and hide them in towns), or send them to collect peasants, golems, trolls...
I completed almost everything in the Cursed Armor because of the initial slow (I didn't use armor where AI heroes had Father same as Dragon's Might; only then and only against such did I set artifacts to maximum stats)
Angel Alliance:
Collecting alliance parts is part of the plot, but there are a few points I want to mention right away —
Do NOT exchange the Infernal set (Sword of Infernal Flame, shield, sulfur breastplate, and Helmet of Satanic Fury) for sandals, as we will get them in large quantities very early from enemies), by the time you can exchange them, some of these artifacts might even be used;
The helmet with +6 to all stats is a very cool and necessary item, but there's one point — it's obtained very trickily at first, and later you can get it without giving 3000 ore for it;
Same for the armor: there's no sense in exchanging the blade and Cursed Armor, especially since the Cursed Armor gives slow and other pleasant spells at the start of the battle;
Everything else from the alliance is collected easily along the way;
Useful and frequently used artifacts:
- Golden Bow;
- Vial of Life;
- Shackles (can be left off when storming non-Barbarian castles);
- Sphere of Vulnerability;
I used Cursed Armor and armor from the Dragon's Might set due to + attack and defense, and before them, I used the best available;
- Spirit of Oppression is generally better to use against everyone, especially against green; a must-have when progressing with expert fire and berserk;
- Hourglass of the Unlucky Hour — against green heroes and those whose luck is clearly off the charts;
- There's no sense in bringing books into battle;
- Anti-blindness charm — I used it almost always, even when I had the alliance necklace, as it's much more important that some stack isn't blinded at an inappropriate moment;
- Medallion of Forgetfulness;
- Cloak of Speed and sandals;
- We carry all quest artifacts with us, but give the rest to one-off heroes;
Of course, hat, boots, gloves — the hero must not lose speed or tempo;
- The Badge of Courage is bugged in some versions — it gives immunity to mind magic, but I played a version where this bug is no longer observed;
- When visiting mana doubling — wear everything with maximum knowledge increase.
The author suggests using all speed artifacts and investing maximally in attack, but I believe this option is wrong; therefore, I recommend balancing attack and defense stats and using balanced artifacts without a strong bias toward defense or attack (both are actually necessary)
Now about the heroes:
The main hero handles all battles, but it's necessary to prepare 3-4 heroes for the final stage of the game!
And also, if playing without archery, you'll have to make a separate hero with Ballistics for one battle (I wrote about this earlier)!
Therefore, before heading to the necromancers, it makes sense to additionally buy stronger troops as much as your gold allows, give them corresponding artifacts and place heroes in the following towns:
- Drakarosh (Barbarian town, probably even with a grail)
- Diamond Castle
- Diamond Gates (if orange later descends into the dungeon there, he is often encountered there — one road, no way to scatter).
- A hero can also be placed somewhere in the middle of the swamps
Why we do this:
Later, orange necro guests come to us and start running across the land; so, to minimize town losses and speed up map completion, you should already be ready and wait for his heroes (obviously the main ones cannot be defeated, but secondary ones who can run far — they must be met).
At first, one Mogrein will be enough; perhaps someone with knowledge of ballistics will be needed for one battle,
but there is an option to complete everything not with Mogrein, but with Yabarkas (doubtful, but chances probably exist)
and then:
Haas, Erianna, Aelwin, a leveled-up Ballist — these should be enough.
Plus, at the end, two quite powerful heroes will be freed and they can also be used easily!
Now about the tactics and strategy of completing the map.
On the map:
- The main hero only breaks through guards, while mines, resources, and artifacts are picked up by secondary heroes;
- All chests are taken for gold;
- At first (while he can be accompanied), the main hero is accelerated by a side hero;
- The main thing is not to make extra moves, i.e., you must have a completion plan! First you go here, then there, and so on across the whole map: no returning, etc., everything optimal: here, then there...
At first, all troops are brought by heroes;
Then 4 Earth books are divided between the main hero and "losers" with expert or advanced earth (they fly between towns and gather an army, bring it where needed; the hero himself does not go to town for troops — mana is also replenished and doubled along the way — making a detour is highly undesirable);
In the swamp and snow — it makes sense sometimes to take boosters with your own creatures (Master Djinn, dragonfly, etc., when there's no threat of attack from an enemy hero), especially if you didn't get the Pathfinder skill;
- Spells are also transferred via Literacy: no need to lead the GG or TP him for a couple of 1-4 lvl spells;
- These seem like simple things that don't even need writing, but still....
- Quests: whenever possible, they are performed by side heroes (for resources and troops), but for stats — same as the main hero should go, though all stat quests are located along the way and won't require major deviations.
Now about the battles:
Most of them are terribly long....
There really are battles that last 30-40 minutes, around 80 rounds, if not more....
I can't call such battles difficult; they seem simple, just keep clicking with the mouse)
Still, to help people, I'll break down the main points:
- First, capturing the second town: seems primitive to me; the main thing is to learn Blindness in the 1st town, free the hero from prison, take the "canned" troops, upgrade angels to archangels to resurrect losses if necessary; i.e., blind the snipers, then remove griffins and elves from the game, shoot down dwarves (who we slow first), and finally finish off the sniper stack);
- Battle for the bastion in the mountain:
Two problems here: you might have arrived too early or not visited all skill boosters, so they hit hard and losses can't be recovered; optimal to go there with 5-9 archangels (the number of angels may vary because of the "canned" troops at the start — the number is random in each game, from 1 to 4, so we might start great with 4 angels or just 1), specifically in the bastion we get the spells Prayer and Resurrection;
- Battle with fairy dragons: very simple — by this point I usually have 12-14 archangels, and immediately after this we invade red's lands, so we double mana near the bastion in the mountain, exit, and start the campaign against the dragons; at this moment we build a chain to bring all GG troops for the invasion of red (another point: we go to the dragons through sand, and it's no coincidence that the author placed a nomad tent there — neutrals who have no penalty for moving through sand), we enter the clearing and see a mercury mine there (either put troops there or don't waste moves on it, but bring a troop-carrier behind GG, who takes everything from him except archs and runs to the mercury mine, while GG defeats the fairy dragons by simple method: anti-magic, then stand at the very bottom behind the lake — only 2 dragons attack us, we blind them, and take them out one by one, then blind again for the last one, wait for anti-magic to wear off, resurrect, and it's done; only after that do we take the chest with 500 mana — it will be very useful later, but not much is needed here);
- Then all battles follow one algorithm:
Take out enemy stacks one by one, shield/prayer/stone skin/bless on your own, and blind, berserk, slow on the enemy, depending on the situation; at the end, blindness on a weak squad, and start resurrecting losses;
Resurrecting losses — later it will be more effective via archangel clones: summon clone, use it to resurrect loss in a stack (usually all or almost all), then kill the clone with Ring of Frost (if playing in an open field), and summon again; if the last stack isn't killed in one turn: either when the turn of our last creature comes before its own, apply blind and defense, moving to a new round, or berserk so the AI doesn't get control of the stack);
Sometimes you can use Destructive Ray on a blinded unit (watch mana carefully here);
- Frodragon: generally without losses or with some halberd attrition — it's sometimes better not to resurrect them, as meat isn't worth the mana and they'll be discarded anyway;
Frodragon casts Prayer, so in the first round, to avoid losing initiative and striking power later — Prayer; first horses block the gates (then you need to carefully replace them with halberds), then slow, blind, berserk (even on a single stack it's sometimes worth applying); at the end just raise all losses. Frodragon's troops and stats aren't much higher than ours, so when he flies out with archangels, that's it — swarm the archs and wipe them; in the first round shooters take out shooters, then move to archs and griffins; later you can even put your own on berserk and leave his infantry behind the castle walls, if the catapult hasn't broken the walls by then;
- Then the fun begins: if you slow down, waiting for Virill's reinforcements (generally at 3-3-1 or slightly later, we should already be hitting swamp dwellers hard, specifically approaching the finish of them), enemies will run to us; kill them the same way — via berserk, blind, slow, attacking one stack with everyone, resurrecting losses; essentially you'll have to spend a night in town every time to replenish mana, which is very undesirable and loses tempo;
Swamp dwellers are defeated this way, and barbarians are cleared too;
Then we go to Jorge:
- Interesting author's idea: pass through a one-way teleport without a teleport — the solution is very simple of course — from Alondo we send heroes into such a one-way; when all exits are occupied, GG can pass freely through the portal;
- Jorge: he won't run anywhere from the town, so there are two options: if the game is going well for you, lock him in there, blind him etc. etc., with subsequent resurrection; if not so well, just leave him for better times until you build up strength (undesirable, but possible);
- Erianna's Guardian with rusty shackles: main thing is to face him with a large mana reserve and take some "attrition" units, like centaurs or halberdiers (attack only with bears and archangels, and 5 stacks of attrition), then slow, blind, then use Destructive Ray to lower def to 0 or until our bear attack confidently passes; make archangel clones, bear clones: then archangel clone hits, then archs hit, then bears, and on the bear clone apply blindness, defense again and move to next round; you can also throw berserk on the rusties so the AI hero casts nothing; then all losses are resurrected by archangels, except attrition (alternative option — take powerful gorgons from all swamp towns and crush them and their clones with death gaze, also via blind);
- Yorogoss: warning, he has a Cloak of Denial, he's evil, he has a bunch of creatures there, BUT by the time we meet Yorick and Gird (I used the same tactic against them), we will already have snipers and wizards in very good numbers, the Golden Bow; you can also buy swamp shooters and take them if finances allow:
Pass easily: in 1st round either slow or blind on birds, see what's more convenient, then shooters take out cyclops, and archs after wait calmly wipe the catapult — then birds are shot down... and the fun begins: all Yorogoss can do is hit with a shooter (if you have Dragon's Might, he won't even do that), and then slowly but surely all his infantry crystals, wolves, hobbs, bears are shot; act same with Gird, and also we defend in town with grail, so our attack will be hitting hard);
- Targon: killed via berserk on fairy dragons; if fairy dragons cast even one thing on us, half the troops will be gone, i.e., fairy dragons are always under berserk or blind (but make sure he doesn't remove it), shooters take out shooters, everyone else deals with flyers: and in the end blindness and resurrection of losses decide everything, as usual;
- Ahmeid: very, very long battle... lock him in definitely and break the catapult via berserk...
After the catapult was broken — resurrect shooters with archangel clones and hit his snipers with shooters etc.
Once there are no more shooters and he's out of mana, shoot and resurrect losses; simple and long;
- Lomokror is killed on the same principle: capture his town, double mana there, then attack him without losses;
- Ashwing I (before greens): the one with 100 black dragons — attack only with archangels, we'll have well over 100 of them; so in 1st round shield and fly to a corner, then 2-3 black dragons hit us, and we resurrect losses with clones — result: fast and without losses;
- Now brown will be more fun... you need to find an algorithm where the AI behaves optimally and gives optimal casts (rage on nags, bless instead of haste, lightning instead of shield or resurrection etc.), use berserk and blind depending on how things go;
I spent a long time with brown to have enough mana and finish without losses; also the thing is we can't capture all towns in one turn, and they run through teleports, so there's this option:
We capture 1 town, then spend the night in it and Solmir and others will attack on their own (main thing: all troops to garrison, while hero with 1 arch stays in town; then they sense that he's stronger and 100% run to attack, and then a few easier ones, but everything is defeated even without staying in town); also don't forget that every few weeks or month Invris should run through towns — collect troops and TP them all to the town where Mogrein is — they don't spend mana on collecting troops);
- Then an interesting situation with the Archmage and Eternia:
You can defeat the Archmage (Naerod in the Imaginarium) — it's even easier, plus you get some titans for this, and Armageddon's Blade, which someone might find useful (maybe even Mogrein), while we already have AOTD by then; reward for Eternia is tastier but everything is harder, so better break the Archmage first, and then cover Eternia anyway, just later, though of course Torosar dies a brave death since the Archmage doesn't visit the tent for Torosar;
- Hero with 3500 black dragons: wagon, snipers, 1 stack archangels in AOTD with Sphere of Vulnerability — and immediately apply berserk so AI casts nothing; 1 stack flies to a corner to lure black dragons away from snipers, who stand right in front of the wagon at that moment; then force field (black dragons are two-hexes, so they can't enter 1 free hex, thus we freely close off snipers and wagon), then shoot black dragons standing before us; next turn prayer on snipers, then again force field, then bless, then force field, then just update force field and berserk, and then before the last hit resurrect 1 stack of archs;
- Ashwing (main battle): here is a truly difficult battle, but it's passed with losses of wagon and tent, most likely they won't be saved — since enemy has Dragon's Might, wear artifacts for max defense and attack stats and sniper bow so shooters aren't blocked! (just think about taking an anti-blindness charm there), then: 1st round definitely cast shield, 2nd round cast prayer, and from 3rd round archangel clones resurrect bear and gold dragon losses, archs if needed; then you must minus his wizards, move archs and bears out of strike range (that's why they run forward to minus medusas, eyes, wizards); my AI also positioned itself very luckily with tactics, allowing me to confidently minus wizards; then when he has fewer shooters left, start hitting black dragons — gold ones take the retaliation, archangel clones resurrect losses, bears heavily minus... then rusties and crystals, then finished by shooters — 1 stack, so there are up to 100 shooters; then elemental summoning begins — there are 300-400 earth eles — for bear strikes, so just endure medusas/eyes and Ash's strike magic; when mana runs out, shooters with wagon will hit archangel clones, and thus all losses are resurrected through the archangel clone (main thing is to double mana as much as possible before battle);
Alternative completion in castle (storming/defense, but I haven't tried and don't recommend trying);
- Thom: attack in AOTD, with anti-blindness charm and Sphere of Vulnerability, Spirit of Oppression, Golden Bow and Shackles, only titans with wagon [brought by a "loser" via TP] (their speed with cloak will be more than efreets), so then it's simple — slow from AOTD passed, we cast force field on wagon, then on titans, and then update: wagon-titans, shoot ifrits; long but simple... !!!Main thing is not to finish off an ifrit stack on your turn until AI runs out of mana for resurrection, otherwise he resurrects ifrits and the battle hangs!!! i.e., we bring one stack down to 30-40 and don't kill it, but switch to other 2 thousand efreets, and start minusing stacks only when AI exhausts mana for resurrection! Very easy and very long;
- Hidoross: the longest battle!!! Attack in AOTD and with medallion of forgetfulness — then slow from AOTD passes, and in first round we cast forgetfulness; as a result he starts moving forward with everyone, then we put force field first on one passage, then on second (battle is on ships and there are only two bridges that are blocked by force field); then all 7th level troops are gathered in the bottom corner, tent and wizards are in the very corner, while snipers stand at the top with wagon...
And every round we update force field on passages; first shoot both ice-elemental stacks (but don't kill any stack), then shoot hydras (don't kill stacks, leave a little bit); meanwhile he casts everything he can: from bless and joy to sorrow, and then starts hitting ours with Ring of Frost, Chain Lightning, which is why all 7k had to be in one bunch so the chain and other mass spells didn't hit snipers and wagon..
And so we update field and shoot until forgetfulness wears off ice-elementals, which was 70+ rounds at that point... after ice-elementals started shooting, only then can you start minusing stacks (but one stack of ice-elementals must be left to resurrect losses later); if you have expert fire, berserk on hydras and things will go easier and faster, otherwise just hit — Hidoross was killed in about 40-50 minutes for me.....
- All other elementalists are wiped by the known scheme;
- Eternia: I didn't let her just disappear and after crushing all pinks went to finish her off — there it's simple: blind one set of phoenixes, then others, quickly wipe air-elementals, and take out phoenixes one by one under blind, resurrecting losses;
- After that we come to the main one — orange!
- Tamika: run away from her first; AI enters town, merges stacks into one — 25 black dragons on a magic field! Simple and easy, just very long — berserk on knights so there's no cast; in 1st round bring one stack to catapult and retreat with others; in 2nd round via berserk on your own the catapult is broken and that's it — knights behind wall under berserk — AI casts nothing, while we shoot these knights;
- Invision: second interesting battle, but not difficult if you give Vael artifacts from Mogrein (including anti-blindness charm); then Vael learns everything there, gets a ton of mana, so we can blind his dragons, resurrect our own, apply berserk to his dragons...
First blind everyone, then do berserk and wake with magic, and that's it; things are gradually sorted out calmly, nothing difficult;
- Heliar: via berserk, blocking gates and blindness with resurrection also passed calmly and easily;
- Nathaniel: in Dragon's Might on cursed land — so losses will be 100%; because of this the main thing is to reduce losses, make them non-critical — cover shooters — minus liches first, make it so his squads are primarily hydras, bears, gold ones, and then shooters and archs... and of course block gates; actually very easily wiped;
- Orange Necros: Yorogoss, Vandroy, Josephine etc. etc. — wiped by Erianna, Ghashra and Vael quite calmly, nothing difficult there;
- Incinerator: final battle, truly a bit hard to pull off, but it's the last battle, so who cares about losses or mana; save nothing, just take everyone out in order.
In the end, battles really just exhaust you because you need to:
!Find an optimal algorithm of actions and thereby correct AI behavior in the most convenient direction: blind/berserk/leave shooters without mana/lock in castle/break catapult during defense and resurrect losses; that's it, nothing more, just clicking mouse for 10-30 minutes with animation accelerator on; without it I'm afraid to think how much time a battle would take...
Now quests:
- Quest for sandals is optional and even unnecessary;
- First of all, in barbarian land, raise knowledge for the bag of gold, then everything else;
- Regarding the vial of dragon blood: definitely not worth giving it for attack, BUT later think about — either get 100-something gold at start (when you already have a thousand and 100 won't hurt for strengthening such a strike stack) or get 500 black dragons at the very end of the game...
I want to clarify that I took these black dragons not with Vael as the author intended, but at the very end when they weren't needed, and Mogrein was already approaching the battle with Incinerator; I took them with Erianna, she also read the scrolls that logically should be read by Vael...
And those 500 black dragons were completely useless to me; couldn't deliver them to Mogrein (I'll talk about this later), and strike units there are gold ones, not black, of which a crazy amount is gathered from so many Ramparts, plus we get some in quests; therefore I believe you can just take 100 gold right after the battle with Incinerator — it won't be worse;
- Quest for demonization: author writes that it's just another quest, done quickly etc., BUT I don't know when or how to do it... there's really no time for it, and resources accumulate fine without it; enough for Sword of Justice, creatures, and construction... Mogrein with his horde just wipes all main neutrals, and searching for small neutrals with some side hero, counting by table how many kents need to be shed — well, I have neither the desire nor the time to tinker like that, so this quest goes in the trash;
- Quest for Sphere of Vulnerability: at the very end they offer to exchange it for 10 attack — I consider this a meaningless author's move, or for special lovers of harder (in this case longer) games — Sphere of Vulnerability is simply an imba artifact that isn't even worth exchanging for 50 attack;
- Quest for Legion Head: also no sense in exchanging — without this quest we collect 2 legion statues; keep one, and the other either keep or give to the passage guardian;
- Grail quest: guardian requires alliance and badge, but you can enter after visiting the brown key-keeper's tent; only thing is we won't be able to join archangels with alliance, but other troops join and grail is dug up without problems and without alliance;
- Quests with clover: clover needs to be exchanged, but not everywhere — first of all exchange clover with Cloak of Denial for the alliance necklace, as well as for a component of the Vial of Life; can also be exchanged for a component of the Wizard's Well; and don't give it anywhere else, everything will be obtained from AI heroes anyway.
End game:
The real fun begins when orange necros fly in...
They are defeated easily; all difficulty lies in defeating them quickly, as they capture towns, buy what they can, hire heroes, and start crawling across the map....
No sense even describing battles there: Erianna with artifacts, Vael, Ghashra and I also had Uland with ballistics, all with artifacts, mana and troops — calmly smashed necros; similarly Seroskal is taken without stress, minimal and insignificant losses everywhere...
According to the author's logic, as I understand it:
In "Tar-Kunor" — the town where Vael defeats Invision, Water Walking MUST absolutely appear, but here's the problem — for me it DID NOT appear...
The thing is that after having so many towns and obtained + creatures, all this is successfully bought and gathered (meaning what will be used — bears, archs, shooters etc.), gathered by Vael or another hero with logistics, then we land near Seroskal at the obelisks — do Water Walking and reach Mogrein, go there to the nameless... then transfer this whole horde to GG, who pushes for final battle with Incinerator, where there are absolutely no difficulties!
And if Water Walking doesn't appear, no TP, then reinforcements cannot be brought, so everything becomes quite difficult (there are no taverns anywhere behind Seroskal)!
Therefore, I came up with (but haven't tested yet) an alternative option: we don't jump immediately with Vael into the portal to Invision, but first go home (troops in town, and we run away or resign with subsequent hiring in needed towns), gather everything, then enter the portal behind Seroskal again, transfer reinforcements to Mogrein, and then proceed according to author's plan.
Archmage Quest
Releasing the Archmage is quite possible, but you have to make it so the Archmage leaves, otherwise Torosar will be afraid to come out; therefore we leave all brown towns empty, and most importantly open the gates requiring 100 archmages, then Torosar definitely comes out (in various map completions, it was noted that he 100% comes out then, otherwise he might just stand there like a blockhead).
Quest for 10 Archmages
Screwed up or something and you lost 1/2 archmage — no big deal!! You can skip this quest entirely and not even give 10 archmages))
When we capture Har-Harond, then we go along the path and hit a dead end, and see a Conflux town; actually you can pass there: originally a boat stands on that secret path (but it cannot be summoned to that spot later), so if you don't sink all boats but buy and summon nearest ones, there is a chance that when we come to Har-Harond, a boat will be standing there; we get in and go along this secret path, and troops even join us...
If opened in editor, it's visible that right behind the Conflux town — on solid ground — there is a passage (though I didn't actually go from Harond to brown through it — I probably removed the boat by summoning)!
In summary, what I can say about the map:
- Made with soul, a true masterpiece of Mapmaking!
Control of AI behavior on map, thoughtfulness of AI actions, drawing, appropriateness of objects;
- Designed for players with some experience in Heroes who know certain things;
- Everything thought out to the detail in terms of text (hints, plot etc.; though maybe I saw a couple of typos there, or maybe on another map, can't remember exactly now);
- Demanding not so much in battle conduct as in playing on the map itself at first (after victory over Ashwing and elementals you can breathe and stop rushing forward, but until then, you must keep the tempo of map completion);
- Variability of completion, choice left to player, despite general linearity and sequence;
- Presence of "visible" secret paths and roads without editor, as well as artifacts and resources; i.e., seemingly hidden, but found easily and without editor;
- Exhausting battles.... terribly long battles... really few difficult battles: Incinerator, Ashwing, and perhaps Nila and Solmir made me think about how to approach them so there'd be enough troops and mana for victory, find a battle algorithm to be without losses and faster; everything else are battles of 70-80 rounds or more, with mechanical mouse clicking (so much I want to press q or a, but can't, realizing the computer is even stupider here and won't repeat this primitive algorithm); sorry, but for me a battle is difficult when you have to win by skill, not when it's force field-shoot and repeat for 85 rounds... that's not difficulty, that's grinding (although of course AI was created exactly so he could be hit and defeated);- a good RPG map, which, like other RPG maps, suffers from the fact that we eventually end up with just hordes of troops and tons of mana, and everything boils down to calculating how much mana will be needed and how many rounds it will take;
- it takes very long to complete.... in terms of actual time, battles last a long time, turns take a long time; more real-time is spent completing the map than one would like;
- at first, the map truly seems complex and interesting, but once you figure it out, the interest in simply finishing it remains, while the interest in the Gameplay is killed by 80-90 round battles and thousands of creatures in a stack;
- there seemed to be a slight oversight (or so it feels, as the author's plans and thoughts on this matter are unknown) regarding hero availability (Andru should have been completely banned - he is ultimately an enemy from the swamp; similarly, the first Vael should have been banned, otherwise we get the ability to play with 2 Vaels - one Lorelei and another Gunnar), and some thought should be given to others (i.e., when you can initially take Yabarkas with all expert secondary skills at level 1).
That is the opinion formed after completing this map, which is truly worthy of heading the list of the best Heroes 3 maps for single-player!
As for the difficulty of the map - I still believe that it is far from the most difficult to complete, and that there are more challenging maps for single-player (specifically in terms of battles with AI and actions on the map)!
