Posts from Walkthroughs for custom maps. Auto-translated

Well, you know... Standard maps, compared to custom maps, are like an alphabet compared to some novel. To say that you've missed out on a lot would be an understatement. Even to create your own maps, it's highly desirable to play on custom maps to see what original tricks, obstacles, and other challenges they have. These maps truly reveal the deep potential that exists in "Heroes."
Based on your description, I can't understand which map you're talking about, but I probably haven't played it: I don't remember such a victory condition; everywhere, it required defeating all opponents.

Decided to take a break from Xiedu and defeated Madre using a provided save. The battle is simple but lengthy. We blind everyone and then systematically cast the destructive beam. The most problematic enemies here are the fairy dragons. Before we start shooting at them, we cast antimagic on the liches, just in case the dragons resist the blindness spell on our troops with magic mirror.

Congratulations! Antimagic is needed to protect against magical creatures in general, their magic, and to prevent the reflection of our spells – liches cannot be blinded (but it is possible to inflict amnesia). It's strange that your approach worked: Madre has all the spells (I checked in the editor), wouldn't she allow herself to be blinded and remove the blindness? As far as I know from experience, the AI always tries to remove blindness. Even when the enemy hero has no healing, no spell removal, or no antimagic, they will definitely cast something (chain lightning, armageddon), which will remove the blindness. Have you tried getting a Berserker? Maybe there is a way after all? Although, in general, this should have been taken care of after the first few months of the game (I'm mainly writing this for Xaart). Also, at the beginning, if it's important for the current map, I try to figure out what skills the main hero can acquire and in what order he should be developed. Most often, I am interested in earth magic, followed by fire magic and water magic: these skills are valuable on almost any map. And the rest depend on the situation. Tactics and ballistics are also very useful in battles. Here's how I do it (there is a special utility, but I manage without it, doing everything manually): I save the game, use a cheat code to increase the hero's level, and record which skills appear and what I choose. When all 8 skills are obtained, if I like the combination, I take a screenshot and save it, then reload the game to continue. If the combination is unsuccessful, I load the save again, and this time, instead of something, I choose a different option. This way, I can find out in advance if I will "fail" with earth magic. In some cases, I have to assign another hero as the "parent" for this reason, and, of course, the sooner I do it, the better. I also sometimes find out what skills a secondary hero can acquire: most often, literacy is needed if you need to learn a valuable spell that the third hero has.

Strange that your approach worked: Madre has all spells (checked in the editor), would she really allow herself to be blinded and not remove the blindness? As far as I know from experience, the AI always tries to remove blindness. Even when the enemy hero has no healing, no dispel, and no anti-magic, he will definitely cast something (Chain Lightning, Armageddon), as a result of which blindness will be removed.

On the contrary, I regularly observe that the computer is always indifferent to blindness. And it usually casts Chain Lightning or Armageddon if it needs to destroy our clone and has no other attacking magic. By the way, giving the computer all spells means greatly simplifying our lives — it constantly casts all sorts of nonsense (Air Shield in this fight, for example). The most dangerous enemies are those that have nothing but Dispel :)

And haven't you tried to get Berserk? Maybe there is still some way?

I strongly dislike Berserk. I try not to use this spell, like the Cloak of the Undead King with Diplomacy, if I can manage without them. They are very imbalanced and even cheat-like things.

Added after 33 minutes

Anti-Magic is needed to protect against Faerie Dragons in general, both their magic and the reflection of our spells — Liches cannot be blinded (but Forgetfulness can be cast on them).

Anti-Magic is not needed in round 1, since we blind the Faerie Dragons immediately. But later, due to Magic Mirror, a mishap can occur when 7000 Faerie Dragons resist Blindness and hit the Liches with Chain Lightning or Meteor Shower. They reflected Ray of Destruction with very enviable regularity. Vile creatures. I really dislike fights with them, Azure Dragons, Titans, Efreet Sultans, and Wizards.

On the contrary, I regularly observe that the AI doesn't care about blindness.

Well, I don't know... maybe we have different "Heroes": :) in my game, the AI is very cunning and almost always senses trouble when I blind it. But I checked and confirm: all dragons are blinded, starting with the mythical ones, but I didn't regroup my troops, and one attack took out about 50,000 liches, while raising undead restores only 123 liches at a time. If these were living archers and I had a pack of archangels, their clones could quickly revive them all, but that's not the case here.
Checked: There are only 2 castles on the map, and the portal of glory hasn't been built in one of them yet, so there's no hope for archangels.
And I also didn't see the "Executioner" spell in the spellbook, so I still don't like it. After all, no matter how good you are as a player, the factor of luck/bad luck also sometimes plays a significant role.

And I didn't see the Executioner spell in the book, so I still don't like it. After all, no matter how good you are as a player, the factor of luck/bad luck also sometimes plays a significant role.

I also didn't find my favorite spell, "Frenzy." It seems that the author deliberately deprived the player of access to various fire magic.

Added 3 minutes later

Well, I don't know... maybe we have different "Heroes": :) in my game, the AI is very resourceful and almost always senses trouble when I cast it.

The AI removes blindness, as a rule, unintentionally. It casts general healing if there are damaged stacks, dispels if it wants to remove buffs from our troops, and antimagic if it is afraid of our powerful offensive spells.

The AI's blindness is removed, perhaps unintentionally, but the overlay is definitely applied intentionally. :cool: :eek:

Of course, I can’t know what the AI is “thinking” or why it casts spells in some cases that aren’t immediately obvious, but with enemy heroes, I often try to blind their last remaining stack (it just needs to be without immunity!): if the resistance doesn’t work, then after that, the “opponent is completely under my control.” :) If you blind a strong stack in advance, especially the main attacking one, the enemy won’t put up with it and will come up with something.
With neutrals, of course, it’s easier, unless there are wizards or master djinns among them.

Good evening! I was away, and now I'm back. I wanted to start playing again, but I checked here, and I'm stunned. This is what happens when you have such skilled players. Bravo!!! Marlo, how on earth did you manage to defeat Madre? From the screenshots, I see you eliminated everyone except the liches... and the black dragons too...? How is it even possible to win like that...???

Xaart, if anything is unclear during the battle, feel free to ask.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0PZYBjg5rX8&t

Understanding the AI's behavior and knowing where it will move (using a wall of fire) are important. However, there's a lack of variety in the spells available to companions, and the tactics are monotonous (a clone of the Archangel, using blindness and debuffs with zero losses). The value of spells is also an issue (speed and slow, berserk and blindness account for 90% of the spells used in combat... while things like mirror image, sacrifice, and magic resistance are less common), which creates a very unpleasant gaming experience. It used to be so much more fun without this element of obsessive optimization.
Recently, good battles have been those on cursed ground, where there's a trade-off of strength.

The fact that almost nothing is challenging for experienced mapmakers pushes some authors to use completely mind-blowing techniques. The other day, I looked at the map "Qin the supreme" because I came across its discussion on Maps4Heroes. It turned out that my old joke about "defeating 100 dragons with one pikeman" is no longer just a joke. A hero of level 6424 with 4 peasants attacks a town and... wins! The wave of death unleashed by him completely destroys the garrison in the town, but 1 peasant remains alive (the other 3 were killed by the tower shots)!

Marmot, does the hero have a life charm, so the peasant doesn't die? And besides, this seems to be Aeris's map. He has his own surreal world where nothing should be surprising. :)

The fact that almost nothing is challenging for experienced players pushes some authors to use completely mind-blowing techniques.
The other day, I looked at the map "Qin the supreme" because I saw its discussion on Maps4Heroes. It turned out that my old joke about "defeating 100 dragons with one pikeman" is no longer a joke. A hero of level 6424 with 4 peasants attacks a town and... wins! The wave of death he unleashes completely destroys the garrison in the town, but 1 peasant remains alive (the other 3 were killed by the tower shots)!

It's hard to call this Heroes of Might and Magic... I used to recommend such maps in "Best," but now I understand how much these maps waste time:mad:

I don't quite understand these kinds of discussions about "it not being the same game." A huge advantage of Heroes 3 is that, even almost 20 years after its release, players and mapmakers continue to explore the potential inherent in the game, coming up with and implementing new and interesting ideas. If someone doesn't like this, they can simply avoid playing those maps and play what they enjoy. It's really that simple.