Posts from Walkthroughs for custom maps.

I would like to ask not only you, but everyone. Map editors often "sin" with such a trick when "paths" are hidden. Maybe someone is delighted by this (and tastes are not to be argued), but are there any programs to "see" these "invisible paths"? Experienced players, for example, know that with three or more bodies of water, various objects, or volcanoes, and even in swampy areas, the map editor can create such a mess that you don't even want to play, even a little. I'm just used to playing standard missions where you don't encounter such "cool" tricks. How do you deal with these problems?

Has anyone here played or is currently playing Season's maps? I've completed Way Home and The Lord of Rings so far. The first one is noticeably easier, and the second is noticeably harder, when comparing them. Now I'm trying my hand at Heroes of Jin Yong. The first day was difficult to play in a way that one of the starting heroes wouldn't be killed on the third day. I've reached the beginning of the second in-game month, defeated two opponents near the starting sandy area (Inferno and Citadel), but I still feel like I'm in the mouth of a volcano. I've saved Xiedu for later.

It would be interesting to discuss The Lord of Rings. Some moments were genuinely challenging: the battle with Zidar, the battle with Gunnar, accumulating the required number of Wizards to break through Stig. Of the final battles, Tazar was particularly tricky. I'm sure that my tactics in these and many other cases were far from optimal, but this map is rarely discussed, unfortunately, as are the other Season's maps. Although there is a lot to discuss there.

Check out HeroeSportal, it might help. Besides Marmot, there are only a couple of other people here who have any real skill.
In the CIS community, and specifically on HeroeSportal, I personally found and uploaded "Heroes of Jin Yong." I found it on a Chinese website, in posts from around 2005, where Season himself hangs out. The map never became popular due to its difficulty.
Harry Potter is also missing from the list; it's a Chinese map, but not by Season.
Try the map "Y2K+1." If you can't find it, I'll send it to you from my personal archive of the best maps.

Thank you for Heroes of Jin Yong. It's currently day 232, and the struggle on the map is very interesting. I've defeated all the AI players around (Kreg and Dessa are still holding their ground), and I'm waiting for an enemy hero to emerge from the Necropolis in the lower left corner of the map. I probably need to pack up and move further away from him.

I'm also far from being a skilled player; I can't speedrun this type of map, but I'm managing to keep a decent pace. HoJY seems even easier than Way Home so far. But I see that later on, insane AI players will start appearing through portals, and they'll be given flight upon exiting the portals. Let's see how I can handle them.

Harry Potter, by the way, was also recently completed. It's a tricky map, especially the start, but Aeris Quamarine couldn't evenly distribute the difficulty across all stages of the playthrough, so from a certain point (namely, when all the heroes rushing to the starting location are defeated), the game becomes simple and even a bit tedious.

Also, thank you for the suggestion to play Y2K+1; I'll add it to my list of maps to try. But for now, I plan to try Rise of the Sun King after the season maps, although I doubt I'll even be able to handle the first few days :)

Don't you play these types of maps yourself?

As I feared, Solomir, in his foolishness, attacked Eisidus and freed Erathia... And then he attacked Yorogos. He beat him so badly that he apparently couldn't escape, and Solomir got the artifacts. After the battle, the already weakened Solomir was easily defeated without any losses.

I don't really like maps like this, where you have to understand the author's logic, right up to the last move, to the last unit of mana.

I don't particularly enjoy maps like these, where you have to understand the author's logic to the very last move, to the very last unit of mana. And a mistake means replaying, and all of this takes more than an hour.
But I can say that they are somewhere in the middle for me.

In LotR, it turned out to be an important test of the terrain of each battle without an HD mod; thanks to this, for example, you can break through 40 Azure Dragons with a small pack of Harpies-Witches by the end of the first month :)

especially if this logic is inadequate or tedious.

Harpies on 1 tile -> Azure creatures cannot reach them (the terrain is designed by the author to block creatures with 2 movement points) -> quick battle?

That's quite an exaggeration, by the way. Season maps need to be played with a focus on tempo, but I didn't need any supernatural planning for EVERY turn in the case of Way Home and The Lord of the Rings. The different completion times among those who managed to complete, for example, LotR, are proof of that. Some needed 30 months, some 10 (my case), and some even managed in 4.

supernatural planning for EVERY turn

At the beginning of such maps, there's a huge difference. Do you break through the Fairy Dragons with a Titan and Genies for a bag of gold, which will give you an important army and a daily gold increase (shaman spells, the beginning of Way Home), or do you think, "No, playing with the random healing of Genies is nonsense"? In Lord of Rings, you definitely need to gain exactly 1 experience point for each Spawn of Evil to summon all the demons, and if even one of them messes up, you have to restart.

In LotR, only the first game week is played in such a strict manner; in Way Home, it takes about three weeks to capture the tower in the upper left corner of the map. After that, you can move in different directions.

or you keep going and think, "No, playing with random healing from genies is ridiculous."

Here's an interesting point. After dealing damage to the Titan with magic from the Fairy Dragon, the Djinns mostly just heal and cast spells. They sense that otherwise, he won't survive.

It's more difficult in LotR on day 5 to kill the Fairy Dragon with 2 Angels, but there seems to be water resistance, so it's also a solvable problem.