Posts from Walkthroughs for custom maps. Auto-translated

Question regarding the Chinese map, The Lord of Rings. Is it permissible for the Red and Orange AI to capture the Red Tent? And what are the consequences of this?

It's possible, but not ideal. I see that after this, red might be able to send a hero from Inferno to point 118.59.0. Orange will probably also cause some trouble. I personally didn't allow them to visit.

On turn 273, Hero Theodore appears, with +800 mages and immunity to blindness. Should we ignore him and continue onward, or focus on defeating him?

For now, I blocked it in the water.

Oh, I still need to make him go to the water; I'll have plenty of time before the next hero arrives, if there is one.

Time is running out. Next, the Necropolis creatures will attack, followed by heroes from the underground Inferno zone.

Are you talking about the battle with Sir Lock? I still don't understand what makes him so important. Sure, if we don't get to the Le Strada area, we won't get the rusty dragon, we won't capture the Nidarock castle, and we won't get the crystal dragon lairs. But how does that fundamentally affect anything? If crystal dragons were needed somewhere, then yes. But they aren't needed anywhere.

Yes, you're right. Then there are two possible explanations, depending on the author's intention:
1) It's some kind of Easter egg. If you find it, good for you. If not, it's not critical for completing the game.
2) The author got confused and lost the plot thread of the quests.
But who's going to figure out these authors...

There is a hint, emphasis mine:

Day 2 event
cool man: Mr. Fat, did you succeed in defeating Sir Lock? Sure, I think, with all the towns possibilities inside! I hope it so much, because, if you didn't gain victory, your companions will be very sad....

In any case I agree it should be made clearer, either by clear message or quest leading to defeat.

I received a brief message from Biobob concerning Rise of the Sun King. He's interested in updating the map but his free time is very limited.
I asked for general outline of map so that anyone willing can help update and finish the map... will update if I ever get another reply)

Congratulations on completing the map :) I found some interesting things for myself, for example, I'm hearing for the first time that the fire shield can be very important.
I'm a little confused that a cheat was used because the AI opponent ran away and didn't open its quest marker. This could easily be a bug, but it could also be an additional puzzle from the author.
It's a fresh take. In Metatag, you could complete 2/3 of the map only to find out that it's impossible to complete because of an unkillable enemy hero on level 111. But I don't approve of such sadistic behavior from mapmakers, so I'm a little confused and uneasy. When I imagine that I wouldn't have known about a completely obvious battle in Rampart, and after a couple of months of real time, I would realize that it's impossible to complete, I get goosebumps and have strong associations with the movie Saw; the final soundtrack from it is perfect for such a situation.

Thank you :) The fire shield returns damage, as far as I remember, at the level of the Ifrit. And if you're facing Mephala, Tazar, Nela, and your 1,500 creatures deal only 1 hit point, then the fire shield looks like a very good help!
Regarding the AI opponent running away and the cheat. It's a simple situation, and I'm more than sure that there's no other way to solve the puzzle.
The fact that enemy heroes didn't visit tents on the map happened twice (Bolt and Flax), as I wrote. And if the first time I fixed it by manually opening the tent markers for the AI, i.e., simply giving him heroes, then in the second case, it was already impossible. This problem most likely arose because I didn't kill any of the orange AI's heroes for a very long time. And most likely, when the necessary hero was running around, he didn't take his tent because, anyway, after taking the tent, no one could be released, since the AI had 8 heroes on the map. Therefore, if I had killed some weakling earlier, i.e., there would have been 7 of them, then before the AI blocked itself, I think it would have taken the tent and released the necessary 8th hero.
A similar situation occurs at the beginning of the Rise of the Sun King map, where the enemy hero needs to lose with his archer and Ifrit so that he gains the 2nd level of experience and then opens the marker and releases a hero. So, there, this enemy hero gains the 2nd level, but doesn't open the marker (doesn't go further) because (there's an opinion) that there are already 8 heroes of his color on the map, and the AI doesn't see the need to open the marker, i.e., you can't release a 9th. The same is true here: "the tent is not needed because we can't release anyone, it's better to go to the level-up shrines/for gold/artifacts, etc."
On map 6424, this problem can be solved very simply: you need to enter the underground gate near the exit from the fire spawn (next to the water spawn), end up on the upper part of the map near the lake and the exit to the water. And immediately dig in so that the enemy AI doesn't land here. And that's it, there will be no problems because no one will go there and block themselves.
BUT! This problem may appear, for example, when you don't kill the AI of one color for a long time, and it, without visiting the tent, runs with its several heroes to one place, where you simultaneously attack it. Then the situation may repeat: there will be no one to open the tents!
"Life didn't prepare us for this" - as they say :)
Unfortunately, this became clear only at the end of the map.

Have you actually read the entire Google translation of the "6424" texts? There is useful information there, and perhaps even essential information in some places. For example, there is this:

Cuthbert excitedly ran up to tell you:
elder patriarchs, I asked about the news regarding the Holy Blood.
You excitedly asked: Really! ! ! Cuthbert
smiled and said: "Of course, the tale from the bard who
came here from the Orcish Empire mentions a message
about divine blood. His tale tells of the great
Orcish traveler Desa and several adventurers who are
searching for the "Holy Blood" as a cure for the
Beastmaster's princess. In honor of Desa's deeds, he gave
an interview to Desa to find the Holy Blood. The experience
is indeed something. You eagerly ask: where is Desa now?
Cusbert said: "I heard that Desa is now living in a place
called Naples, where the Orcish Empire is. It's good that
he will soon leave Naples."

When you pass the final exam on operating the
fire wall! The magic teacher Socrates appears before you:
congratulations, my child. You have proven that you can
complete these tests without using advanced magic. You
go to find your father, go north quickly to the place of
the I. Di Empire. The I. Di Empire is the foundation of
the undead army. Along the way, you will face many
dangerous trials; these undead cannot be underestimated.
You cannot use advanced magic, so for the young
adventurer's gloves brought to you in the hope that you
will help.

And, unfortunately, from page 16 (approximately from the middle) to the end, there are hieroglyphs, and nothing is translated. But you can extract fragments from there and translate them using the same Google Translate (I just checked).

After the Necropolis appeared, I went to the purple castle. There's a garrison with elementals below, but to open it, I need to open the green guard first. However, even after that, a Necromancer attacks through this garrison, and I can't defeat him at the moment. There's also an AI with black dragons and Cerberuses + a Sphere of Inhibition. What should I do? Also, I don't have 18 dragons to open one of the guards.

I didn't quite understand which Necromancer you're having trouble with: Moandor or Tamika? The battle against a hero with Cerberuses and dragons is another puzzle; he can be defeated with almost no losses, despite having a Sphere of Inhibition. Black dragons shouldn't be lost during the game, so you should be able to gather enough of them to complete the quest. Just try to kill Theodorus first, instead of driving the Necromancers into the water to take his place. Did you manage to get the City Portal?

The city portal was obtained even before the Necropolis appeared. There are two Necropolises there. There are no dragons, unlike Theodore's build with +800 mages. Now I have 16 dragons, but the Necropolises are already taking over my castles in the Dungeon.

Map Name: 6424英雄传 (original) / 6424 Heroes (translation)
Author: 鲜鱼汤 (original) / Fresh fish soup (translation)
Downloaded from: the gamerhome forum

This map has also been completed. Since my report will be the second and kolotok has already thoroughly described much of the walkthrough, I will comment on unmentioned points and share some of my own thoughts to avoid too much repetition.

The map is quite difficult, and obvious parallels with Xiedu, which inspired this scenario, come to mind. Many gameplay elements are borrowed from there: the detailing of individual locations, the logic of the scenario's development and the heroes we play, and the battle mechanics. In certain moments, the author let their imagination run wild, seemingly fleshing out some of Syson's (Siyson/Syson's) unrealized ideas at first glance. First and foremost, this involves using heroes of the 6424th level as our enemies. Aeris likes such heroes, and they appeared in Nautilus's maps too, but it is here that their potential is maximally realized; that is, battles with them are not just occasional puzzles. You can fully feel the scale and epicness of the military might of Crag Hack, Orrin, the defense specialists (all three), the magical power of the magic specialists (all five), various offensive spells, and resurrection. The author also devised a good training sequence for Luna at the very beginning, allowing you to feel this hero's strength in the early stages of the game. Another element taken from Xiedu and significantly developed within this map is the abundance of prisons in the zones of computer heroes. You kill one, and you get a new, much stronger one in return. Orange, in particular, has the terrifying ability to activate Isline, who releases thirty-nine incredibly tough heroes scattered across the entire map by a one-way portal, which feels like a real apocalypse :D But this can be avoided by not allowing Monere to visit the blue tent, and then Neela the black one.

One thing that was a truly new feature for me personally on this map compared to any I had played before was the critical necessity of using Eagle Eye and artifacts that increase the chance of learning spells. Yes, it is especially important to learn Resurrection and Clone. I would also add Teleport to that; without it, I wouldn't have been able to handle a series of battles around months 7-8. My main mistake during the game was with Clone – I really needed to learn it from the blue computer, rather than relying on the reasonable behavior of the green one, in whose castle guild Clone was located, and he had everything needed to open the two quest guardians blocking the path to my main castle. This caused a significant delay in the walkthrough. I also learned Prayer, Frenzy, and Fire Shield.

Regarding the difficulty, I agree that it decreases over time. The beginning is quite tense, compounded by the lack of understanding of the progress along Mullich's and Cuthbert's lines, but the further I went, the easier the map became.

For the starting save, the best indicators are the size of the Conscription in point 59.92.0 and Luna's spell power at the time of the fight with the Harpy Hags (preferably not lower than eight). The size of the Conscription in Luna's starting location doesn't matter much; even with just one Angel, you can reach the Necromancers and establish a foothold there. Luna's tactic in the Necromancer lands comes down to stealing the computers' castles – we have visited the red tent, but brown and pink haven't. We hide behind the gates, and the next day we take the castles with un-bought troops, then defend against the local undead. The only annoyance that can happen is that pink can barricade themselves in the castle so that the operator on the other end of the map opens a prison. That's what happened to me with Nagash, and it was a damn tough fight. After freeing Gunnar, we move to the adjacent Tower zone, whose hero is killed in a tough battle using the "Earth Elemental" spell. Oh yes, I forgot to mention another curious feature of the map: both Luna and Gunnar lack Wisdom. And yet, playing through these heroes is very active. There are some scrolls, then elemental books temporarily. The main difficulty of this situation, particularly in battles with Dungeon Lords, is the inability to disable your own catapult during castle sieges, as you have neither Meteor Shower, Frost Ring, nor especially Berserk :) You have to interact with the computers, provoking them to cast Meteor Shower or suitable Fairy spells, but at the same time, it's easier to keep enemy troops behind the walls. Such funny nuances.

Regarding the Tower territory in Luna's zone. The author structured the scenario's development so that when the red pillar is opened, a seriously motivated Theodorus immediately rushes in, but he can be blocked with a boat (there is exactly one free cell for this). And it's worth doing because this Tower will become a very convenient point for returning to the Necromancers and Dungeon Lords later on. Another funny thing is that Theodorus will then open a quest pillar in such a way that we get the box with troops. A hundred Titans certainly won't hurt.

Now a little about Mullich and Cuthbert. The castle is taken on the third day; by the end of the week, building Angels in addition to the horses is indeed timely, but even without them, everything is sorted out in the first week. The task of these heroes is to quickly leave the respawn, preferably by the end of the first month or the beginning of the second. It would also be very good not to kill any of the computer's minor heroes by this point, but that's a matter of luck. In my case, the purple demons acted very aggressively; I had to kill two of them – which ultimately resulted in the elimination of that flag later on giving me almost the most trouble. Leaving the respawn is arranged more complexly than in Xiedu: the weaker Cuthbert leaves first and then fulfills a number of conditions for Mullich's departure. It's worth breaking through the 1000 Hydras with Cuthbert to level up properly, and leaving only with Archers (in my case, there were 26 of them), making sure to leave an Ammo Cart for Mullich. Cuthbert goes to the castle, bypasses the 35 Azure Dragons, takes Armageddon's Blade, returns, and kills the Azures without losing the Archers in all the battles. Then Mullich breaks through the 50 Gold Dragons, practically without Archers and without bringing shooters into battle. The hardest part of this fight is keeping the Cart :) After this, Mullich also leaves. Another important point: in the guilds of the starting castles, we will need one spell. That spell is "Remove Obstacle" :) Very soon, we will face a cycle of battles against legions of Ancient Behemoths. I killed them using the strategy: Crossbowmen, Cart, a screen of single Halberdiers (later Champions for greater hero movement speed on the map), two Angels for kiting, Mass Slow, and Remove Obstacle for properly looping the Behemoths. If you waste mana on Blindness, you might very likely run out of it for refreshing Slow and Blind.

Later, in the blue zone, besides the mandatory tasks of freeing Dessa, getting Eagle Eye, and Literacy, I highly recommend making the landing process on the Barbarian shore controllable, since Behemoths are essentially our main and only real damage-dealing stack on this map. Extra fussing with blue will significantly complicate the stable recruitment of Behemoths.

This smoothly leads to another interesting feature of the map: Theodorus is blocked with a boat, and the blue heroes are blocked with a boat, but along both Luna's and Mullich's lines, you will later need to summon boats. Therefore, you want as many of your own boats as possible :) At the beginning, after passing the neutral zone, Luna creates a boat and claims Gird's boat. Next, with the efforts of Cuthbert, Mullich, or Dessa, you can also take the Barbarian one. Later on, I had to re-block Theodorus once more. I think I finally figured out the nuances of the Summon Boat spell, which had also troubled me in Metataxer: the first hero either summons the nearest neutral boat or, if none exists, creates a new one. Then that specific hero will always summon that exact boat and no other, while a hero not previously involved in summoning a boat can summon either the nearest neutral boat or one created by another hero. In this case, the "nearest" boat is determined regardless of whether it is on the surface or underground part of the map, simply based on x, y coordinates. It seems the map author knows this too, because Theodorus's blocking zone and the snow cross are practically related in coordinates, which caused a serious headache. If you are too lazy to deal with this boat headache, you can let Theodorus in, and you can still enter that zone later, albeit with a significant delay and the loss of about one hundred and fifty Titans.

Then Luna passes through the elemental respawns and emerges into Mullich's starting zone, while Mullich and co. sequentially overcome the Swamp, Inferno, and Rampart zones. All heroes get Town Portal (heroes without Wisdom make do with a single scroll shared among them). In principle, kolotok has already written everything needed about this. Afterwards, Luna clears the path for Mullich to Solmyr, where we visit the blue tent, learn Forgetfulness (useless on this map), avoid being caught by Solmyr, and sail north into the snow. Luna sails to the Flax area. Then we establish a foothold with Mullich in the snow and return to the starting Castle zone and finally start cleaning up the wandering computer heroes. The author well-planned the computers' visits to tents and the distribution of computer heroes across designated zones (especially regarding the pink Tower heroes and brown Necromancers), but there were real problems with the Flax heroes. The system for Orange visiting the required tents is complicated by the need to irreversibly go out onto the water, so Orange heroes need guidance: particular difficulties were with the blue tent for Ffiora and the purple tent which either Erdammon or Pace should visit to release Monere. But do not let Monere near the blue tent, otherwise Islene, prompted by Neela, will unleash utter chaos on you.

Among the prison heroes, the most unyielding were Fafnir and Kilgore. Fafnir fell after I purchased impressive troops into all stacks (before that, a combination of Archangels + Behemoths + a few Phoenixes sufficed), while Kilgore fell after obtaining Berserk in the Grail-powered Flax (Kilgore, for some reason, gave up the Badge of Courage to a minor hero and took a Pendant of Anti-Blind instead). Among the purple heroes, due to killing the minor heroes early, Nimais was the strongest, not Xeron :) The Fortress heroes caused no problems at all; I also blocked Green for a stable income from the four Rampart treasuries. To get Clone, I had to let Clancy in among others, and killing him was tough. The Flax heroes only caused problems with sending them onto the water and forcing them to visit tents.

Then came the time for the 6000-level heroes. The first was Taurion; I outsmarted him by killing all the Liches, and on the second attempt, killed him in the field using a double Force Field. By the way, I had issues with the 6000-level heroes when trying to use Quick Combat in HD+, the game crashed with both Taurion and Sandro. So I had to disable Quick Combat and not press Q in battle. With Sandro, I also killed the Liches using guile, then besieged him in his castle and cut him down with Arch Devils under Anti-Magic, then under Frenzy (the Behemoths couldn't handle this fight). After visiting the black tent, we pick up the Medal of Vulnerability, and most of the remaining heroes are killed without extraordinary difficulty (I didn't use more tricky tactics specifically for 6000-level heroes). Strangely, the longest to hold out was Malekith. All his units were either mobile or shooters, he actively cast Fire Shield, destroyed Inferno troops; I barely managed to blind that bastard. The battles with Alamar and Jeddite turned out relatively simple: although their spell combo is fearsome (Resurrection at level 6424 + Cure + Dispel), you can start the fight against them with Armageddon; then they get busy repeatedly resurrecting all their stacks instead of dispelling Blind. In battles with magic specialists, the Faerie Dragons were particularly memorable: 99 Faeries deal 1.5 million damage with Chain Lightning :eek: But their Magic Arrow and Ice Bolt deal standard damage. Go figure with those dragonflies. It's amazing what map authors make them do in HoMM3: cast under Sphere of Inhibition, cast in anti-magic garrisons, and increase the number of ally troops with area-of-effect casts when the dragon count is negative. Now this too :)

Fighting Crag Hack and Orrin was also fun: both have units dealing millions of damage. I killed Neela and Mephala by defending in a castle using the strategy voiced by comrade kolotok: Behemoths and Archangels in corners, cast Fire Shield on ourselves (45% damage return with Expert Fire Magic), regular Shield, Stone Skin, Prayer, and endure, cloning Archers, throwing Armageddon while wearing the Blade and Medal of Vulnerability (so Armageddon kills any enemy troops but not ours). But I besieged Tazar in his castle and attacked; for some reason, his battle stats became zero (maybe because of the Fortress Grail, although I play with SoD SP and stat overflow shouldn't happen in any case). Defense being 0 or 99 doesn't matter in this case, but zero attack makes the fight harder because the damage from Fire Shield is lower :) I couldn't keep Tazar's troops on the castle walls using Tactics, so the battle was pure chaos. It's better to also fight Tazar from defense rather than by attacking his castle; you just need to watch out for the Minotaurs. You can let them Berserk the Hydras, as I did :D

I defeated the final purple hero with a wagon of troops and the Cloak of the Undead King through a series of tricky single-day attacks, luckily with a tavern nearby. I finished the walkthrough on 10.2.6. It could certainly be done much faster. In my case, the main delay was due to getting Clone late.

The author gives us the right to control the computer's 6000-level heroes. I didn't buy any of them, as it significantly reduces the interest of the walkthrough, and there are plenty of armies even by months 8-9. But as a post-factum check of these heroes' capabilities, especially their interaction with each other, it could be interesting.

Overall, to sum up, the map is top-class and deserves the highest rating, despite the decreasing difficulty as you progress. It turned out to be a successful find :)

P.S. In the screenshots, besides other things, I have again included a collection of trophies (only one set of Shackles of War on the map). I removed all the Necklaces of Serenity from the 6000-level heroes. This is without the 39 heroes from the prisons that Islene could have freed.

P.P.S. Yes, in theory, you don't have to give up the Cloak of the Undead King, but personally, I see no point in it. It's dubious pleasure to do nothing with Luna for several months (?). And then the other heroes would still have to wait for Luna so she can let Mullich through to Solmyr and come to the Flax zone herself. Nonsense, in my opinion.

Thank you for your review, I discovered a couple of interesting points. Couldn't resist adding a couple of comments :)

Map Name (according to translator): 6424 Heroes
Author (according to translator): fresh fish soup
Download: on the gamerhome forum

Regarding Aislin releasing orange heroes from prisons, as I see it, they all seem to have 1 creature per stack, so even if these heroes are freed, they can, in principle, all be intercepted when they exit onto your respawn area — they have no army. Especially since we have money to burn, we even have to change money into resources, so we can buy troops in castles and catch the orange heroes when they enter your zone. This is in case they break through. Also, you can approach the orange prison zone from the side of the Necro castles and catch Aislin there. In general, there are ways to stop this, even though it wasn't necessary during the walkthrough, because Nella attacks the castle on her own before visiting the black tent, and we can kill Aislin just for fun using КВ and Fly.

Regarding the use of Eagle Eye and Scholar, I can also recall two maps: First Blood and Abelia (authored by Minchev). Especially on First Blood, it's also critical to retrain Resurrection in battle against the computer, literally in the first weeks of the game, otherwise we lose our entire army. And in Abelia, I think there are no spells in the castles at all; you need to buy Jedite (Alamar plays for the computer), get him Scholar on level-ups, buy all heroes from the tavern who have any starting spell, and obtain basic Cure, Shield, Stone Skin, etc. I think playing on those specific maps very quickly hinted at what to do on 6424 with spells :)

Regarding killing the first hero in the Tower next to the Necro respawn. As with Nimbus, it's better to lure the computer out and defend the castle from a siege. Simply put, I hid behind the red gate, the computer went to pick up resources from the mill, I entered the castle and fought them inside. Such siege defense battles are much easier :) Perhaps the task was made easier by the fact that I had accumulated a large growth of Necro units (after all, 4 Necro castles vs 1 Titan castle) :) So I didn't use a single Earth Elemental summon out of necessity. Earth Elementals were only needed once in massive numbers when attacking Inferno heroes in their castle.

Regarding the lack of Wisdom for Gunnar and Luna, it is also absent from all 6,000-unit stacks, although they have spells above level 3 in their spell book (Resurrection, for example). This is apparently done so that the 6,000-unit stacks don't have Wisdom and can't retrain Dimension Door from Dessa after buying him from the tavern :)

Regarding blocking Theodorus, I somehow didn't think of it and gave him all the Titans, even though I saw in tests that he opens the pillar but doesn't manage to take the army. In short, I missed out on some Titans, but no big deal!

I can also add that the situation with the Supply Cart at the beginning of the walkthrough is CRITICAL! When leaving the starting respawn, you then need to break through a legion of bears to reach the Barbarians, and doing this without the cart is fundamentally impossible! After going through without the cart, I literally had to "rage over bricks" and replay two days worth of difficult battles from scratch to save the cart in the fight against the Gold Dragons. I wanted to kill the author at that moment! :)

Regarding killing the legions of bears near their dwellings, I didn't use the "Remove Obstacles" spell. As it turned out, obstacles plus toggling to HD+ and back allowed me to choose a favorable landscape; also, Blind can blind them in such a way that they block each other's path and have to run around the blinded ones. In short, near the bear dwellings, my imbued magic was more than enough. I brought Archers + Zealots for these battles, all the Arch Devils (they finished off the remaining stacks of 5-20 bears), plus the Arch Devils resurrected if someone was accidentally killed. I kited the bears with Griffins — though Griffins are 2-hex units (inconvenient for kiting), they fly far to the desired point and have good speed.

I managed to kill all the 6,000-unit stacks without Hitan, apparently because I played with a significant delay and had enough power to one-shot some stacks. And to reduce the strength of 6,000-unit resurrections (Tant, Alamar, Jedite), you can simply kill a stack and step onto its dead corpse with something strong (Titans, Arch Devils, etc.). If we stand on the dead stack, they cannot resurrect it. If you're lucky, the bears and/or Arch Devils can step onto two stacks at once, and we can Blind the rest. It's harder to kill Tant this way, of course, because he can't be blinded, but the principle is the same.

As for Müllich reaching Solmyr — he can get there not only from the south side, but also from the Rampart side: open the white tent on the water near the Rampart area, use Water Walk to go where Luna boarded the boat at the very beginning, and from there use Water Walk to reach Mutare and Solmyr from the other side. That's how I reached him. So perhaps there are masochists who'd want to play with the Cloak of the Undead King and Necro units :)

Thank you for the map, both to the author and to the one who found it, and also for the review!
The map is definitely recommended for a walkthrough!