Posts from Walkthroughs for custom maps. Auto-translated

I studied Rise of the Sun King...
It seems Nautilus really enjoys trolling everyone who starts playing his maps, starting with the choice of the starting bonus:)
It's an interesting map, but the operator stubbornly refuses to open the quest column, which requires level 2. In addition, it's strange that it says you can't dismiss your troops when attacked, but Nautilus miscalculated; the hero receives 500 experience points, not 50, and as a result, the Operator reaches level 2 with a surplus of 450 experience points. I even rechecked various hypotheses, in case there was some hidden plan. But no, no double meaning was found!
In general, it seems that if you start playing this map, you need to remove this quest column. "Need" to, not "it would be easier," because there's simply no point to it.

But overall, it's a tough and interesting map, yes... The battle with the Ifrit and Medusa against 12 angels is something else; I wouldn't have figured out the solution without the author's hint on the forum, that Berserk can be cast not only on the enemy).

studied Rise of the Sun King...

I failed twice with Nautilus's maps. First with Bug-Race, then with 3 Hoch Smash. Both turned out to be impossible, and in both cases, this was discovered almost at the very end of the playthrough (described it in more detail here). I started Rise of the Sun King, played through the first day, saw how laggy Operator was, and decided to give up. I suspected that you need to provoke Operator into opening the prison by killing any green hero, but I couldn't figure out how to get a green hero within 2 days.

Added after 6 minutes

apparently, Nautilus really likes to troll everyone who starts his maps, starting from choosing the initial bonus:)

Stone + wood to build a guild of mages. Trolling on the verge of disrespecting the player :)

Not just ore and wood, but preferably 10 of each, so that picking up a piece of wood in the lower right corner of the city is enough to build Grand Buildings on day 113 (although I'm not sure about the plan). I was amused by the sloppy "fix" for the operator in 24.2. Nautilus placed a mill that was supposed to force him to open the resource piles, the mill forces him, he opens... two out of three and stops at that mill :D (and all that's left is to remove the time limit on the third pile). In general, I had the idea to bring this map to a playable state, but there are several reasons that stop me: 1. If I start fixing everything that, in my opinion, seems like a flaw, I might deviate from the author's intention, etc. For example, I'm really not sure about the correctness of the color of the gate in front of the Fortress (140, 113), and also the situation with this one-way passage and much, much more. 2. AI behavior. Only Nautilus knows how the AI is supposed to behave according to the plan, but there definitely shouldn't be situations like this . This guy is a quest character, he has the ability to walk on water, why doesn't he go to the portal (and how to fix it) I have no idea. 3. And the amount of time needed for testing, and the simple lack of skill in testing logistics and the feasibility of battles :D

We need to somehow get in touch with Nautilus and hold him accountable for this mess :D It's unlikely that anyone else will be able to properly fix this map.

Marlo_Stanfield, could you provide some more details about the first map (?????? 2.1) from the two that you posted in post 947? It looks really good, and there are practically no story texts, but if it's very difficult, that might discourage people. And what will its name be in English, and what is it generally about?

Marmot, I've only looked at it in the editor so far, I haven't played it yet. Here's a thread on Gamerhome: >>> (login: heroes3player, password: gamerhome) The topic title, translated: [New map release] extremely difficult melee map official release The map title, translated: The dark version of the official version 2.1.h3m

Thanks, I'll try to use the browser's Google Translate to read something and see what I can understand.

Basically, as far as I understand, there's no alternative here; as soon as I regain the motivation to play maps, the next one will be The Last Crusade.

As I mentioned before, you might also want to take a closer look at the Chinese maps Xiedu and The Lord of the Rings. They are complex, but overall, they seem a bit easier than Metatax. Although, if you set a goal to complete them in a speedrun, it might seem quite challenging. However, if we're talking about a map that is extremely difficult to complete, then The Last Crusade in its latest version is definitely the one.

The latest version of 'The Last Crusade' will soon be available here:
http://www.maps4heroes.com/heroes3/maps.php?keywords=Hazar&type=The+Shadow+of+Death&size=Extra+Large&difficulty=Impossible&sort=2
It has already been submitted. We are waiting for the admin to update it on the server.

As I mentioned before, you might also want to take a closer look at Chinese maps.

If possible, please translate them. Not everyone knows the languages, and translation is a priority.
Best regards, Yuri.

Ethereal, unfortunately, this is not possible.

Dandy, I managed to get through the first month, more or less, following your strategy in Limes Inferior. The turn management wasn't quite right, so I fell a bit behind in development (I couldn't get the castle to level 147). Now, the question is, what to do about the companions? Should I pull mana with lure units? There isn't much money for such a thing. Also, for some reason, I couldn't get Vistan to spawn on 221 at all; only the Dragon with a fixed army appears.

P.S. The only encounter I managed to play a bit better was the battle with the basilisks; the terrain is really great there.

Hmm... well, at this stage, the following points are important:
1) I'm not sure how critical it is in terms of resources, but my Capitol was at 212, yours is probably later, and each day of delay with the Capitol means a loss of 2k. 2) It turned out that I messed up the AI:
a) Chuasak came to me with a very small army (but this isn't critical).
b) I managed to confuse Cipescu, and she made a move towards a building or upgrade (i.e., she wasted a couple of extra days at least). Whether it was through manipulating the displayed army or just random chance, I don't know; it almost happened by accident. To be honest, I only tested for about 5 minutes, just trying different combinations of overnight stays.
3) In the first attempt, I reduced the AI's mana with units:
For Chuasak, I reduced it to ~10, where each unit with 1 attack could withstand 2 hits. But with Cipescu, I only managed to trick her 3 times before the first battle, so she entered with a lot of mana, and I had to endure it with my gnolls. But in the second attack, I managed to reduce her mana to 10 with units. And I played very carefully so that during the battle with Tazor, at least 1 resistance would occur in the first round.
4) During the defense, I wouldn't buy bulls and wyverns, and those that were already bought were sent far away from the Castle with units. This is because the enemy liked to eliminate them with magic, and without them, the enemy somehow constantly cast combat magic on the buffed gnolls, which I was quite happy with. Perhaps because the stack of gnolls was my strongest stack.
5) And during the first attack, you definitely need to let the enemy escape, and it's important to make sure that they have enough movement points to run out of the Castle after the buyout. In the second attack, I had to kill both Cipescu and Chuasak, because in any case, they would come in the 3rd wave with full mana, but this way we deprive them of artifacts.
6) Regarding buffing Wistan, I stopped doing that around week 6 (I got lazy), although it would be good to do it. In general, sometimes random chance suddenly disappears - in this case, you can try to play the day a little differently, or load a save from a different AI, or turn off HD+. (SOD_SP seems to enable the old random number generator, but it feels like turning off HD+ helps more).

Capitol reached level 215. A nimble swamp creature (Verdish in my case) stole a couple of stacks of gold from me after I cleared out some orcs, which delayed me by a day. I could have tried to defeat 19 creatures with a hundred gnolls, but it didn't seem very appealing, and I was already tired of all these ogres and dogs. Chuasek is retreating, destroying 80 gnolls. I think it might be more profitable to start attacking the AI when I'm better prepared to break through the right garrison. It's important to make sure the AI doesn't reinforce their main heroes. Or maybe it's better to drain the mana of the main heroes, wait for their entire army to gather, and then destroy them.