Posts from Walkthroughs for custom maps. Auto-translated

I solved Antoshka's puzzle in three ways. I also tried a fourth, but Inteus stubbornly refuses to use pathfinding before level 7, and that's when the battle in the garrison takes place, so pathfinding is no longer useful. 1) The Grail goes to the Flux. Despite the 60 mana cost for visiting the Flux, it is more than compensated for by visiting the oasis via the city portal. Accordingly, Inteus solves his logistical problem with a margin. 2) Inteus collects the gold, and Mephala is bought. She takes the Grail from Mullich, and she has enough moves to capture the Flux and exchange troops and artifacts with Inteus several times, which means Inteus saves 50 mana from Mephala capturing the Flux and barely makes it to Valeska. The Grail can be placed in a dungeon for fun. 3) Mullich collects 5000 gold, and Mephala is bought. Remaining with a centaur and visiting the oasis, she is able to dig up the Grail at the right point (move 2100/2100). Mullich places the Grail in the castle, and Inteus saves 50 mana on the pile of gold and barely makes it to Valeska. The battle for the Flux is significantly easier. I don't rule out that there may be other solutions. Overall, it's a very interesting map, there's a lot to think about, and for 2005, it's really great, but by modern standards, it's not particularly outstanding in terms of difficulty. Two medium battles (harpies and the Flux) and the rest are easy.

Yes, for this map, the focus was on logistics. For that time, it had a lot of impressive elements. I personally couldn't solve it completely back then (around 2007), even though the physics engine was already available, but there were practically no resources to learn from. The Grail quest was the most memorable part. But time passes, and Rouzkavalier's map is much more complex.

The most challenging map of this type that I know is Bug-Race, but it was not fully developed by Nautilus. Although, it puts less emphasis on logistics compared to Valley of Heroes.

Added 20 minutes ago

Müllich places the Grail in the Castle...

But the Grail cannot be placed in that Castle on this map, haha. But it doesn't really change anything.

Added 19 minutes ago
I was digging around on Gamerhome the other day and found a very interesting thread where they are collecting links to walkthroughs of different maps.

I suggest you check out the walkthroughs by Metataxер, Xiedu, and 6424 Heroes.

Regarding the first map, what's noteworthy is that it's from 2013, and it's a slightly different version of the map (for example, Nosferatu doesn't have the Sign of Courage, which makes the battle much easier). They also managed to defeat all the prison red heroes without the Vulnerability medal (Jumper was placed in the Castle and defeated, then Sepello, leveled up to 88 (!), with 100 Azure, tanked against any red hero). And Bellpell was defeated on a different, less convenient terrain. But as a result, the completion time was several months longer than even mine.

Regarding Xiedu, the walkthrough was completed in 79 days (!). If anyone wants a really tough challenge for the next six months, they can try to beat that time.

Regarding 6424 Heroes, it's also a slightly different version of the map (I noticed that the color of the gate in the swamp area is blue, not black, which means it's an easier version). The walkthrough took 8 months, and they even bought out the 6,000-unit heroes. And there are a lot of other walkthroughs for 6424 Heroes that stopped at the second or third week :D

http://www.gamerhome.com/bbs/forum.php?mod=viewthread&tid=375308
http://www.gamerhome.com/bbs/forum.php?mod=viewthread&tid=375990
http://www.gamerhome.com/bbs/forum.php?mod=viewthread&tid=382788

Login: heroes3player
Password: gamerhome

I looked at the first page of their Metataser walkthrough.
The proximity to Siberia seems to be a factor, because the harsh Chinese players decided to publicly fire the giant instead of upgrading it. It's interesting what considerations guided them - "beat your own to scare the others"?:) The only somewhat reasonable thing that comes to mind is saving movement points, but why at such a cost?

I wonder what considerations guided them – "beat your own to scare the others"?:) The only somewhat reasonable thing that comes to mind is saving movement points, but why at such a cost?

It seems so. The player didn't find a gem mine to upgrade the giant.

Added 34 minutes later

But time takes its toll, and the map from Rouzkavalier is much more complex:)

Here, by the way, if we take not small puzzle maps, but any maps in general, then, in my opinion, the most difficult map in terms of logistics organization is The Last Crusade. There are things in the later stages of the game that, I'm sure, have never been used in other maps. In some moments in version 3.3.1, I managed to bypass the most difficult parts, but in 3.4, without knowing a number of tricks, it's impossible :)

Even after using Google Translate, it can still be difficult to understand something on a Chinese forum. For example, what is this even about:

I think translating it into English results in a more coherent text overall. However, even in English, this phrase is unclear.

The best thing I've seen so far for translating Chinese phrases is - https://www.mdbg.net

There you can see a sentence broken down into words.

For example, what is this?

The red part - "不得刷版、挖坟、灌水，违者严惩"

不得 - not allowed, 刷版 - posting in many topics at once, 挖坟 - bumping dead posts (literal translation - digging a grave), 灌水 - spam, 违者严惩 - violators will be severely punished.

There's also a problem that some words aren't even in the mdbg dictionary, in this phrase, there are two right away - 刷版 and 挖坟.

Regarding links:

http://m.www.cnblogs.com/diystar/archive/2010/02/10/1667220.html

There's a collection of various Chinese maps + foreign maps, marked with "国外作品". Maybe someone will find something interesting for themselves =)

Especially difficult maps usually have the BT label, although not always.

You can find a very thorough list of Chinese (and others) maps in this Gamerhome thread.

Some of their "hard" maps are a test of patience (reload-RNG) in my opinion - see ljmvbc.

I suggest you check out the walkthroughs for Metataks, Xiedu, and 6424 Heroes.

For Xiedu, the walkthrough took 79 days (!). If anyone wants a serious challenge for the next six months, they can try to beat that time.

For 6424 Heroes, there's also a slightly different version of the map (I noticed that the gate color in the swamp area is blue, not black, so it's a slightly easier version). The walkthrough took 8 months, and they even bought out the 6424-level heroes. And there are a bunch of other 6424 Heroes walkthroughs that stalled in the second or third week :D

Yeah, completing Xiedu in such a short period is insane.
And the 6424 walkthrough, in principle, follows the same pattern until about the middle of the map. Then the chaos begins when they start releasing all the 6424-level heroes, like "let's take a mage against a warrior, let's take a warrior against a mage." It's worth mentioning the battle where the redeemed Tazik fought 99 vampires against legions of archers for the black shards. The author of the walkthrough wrote: "I set it to autobattle, and after 4 hours, I came back" :)
In general, they have their own ideas about honor and dignity when completing maps. Although the map creator said that he doesn't see anything wrong with buying out 6424-level heroes, saying that by killing them, you can feel their power and play with them.

What was confusing during the 6424 walkthrough was that the map is slightly different (the blue gates instead of black ones in the swamp area), and there are no roads in the underground (which slows things down), and a couple of other differences.
Most of the battles in the middle of the map's completion time are based on this strategy: we attack a Castle where the enemy has superior forces. We bring bears, archdevils, archangels, imps (for mana), ghosts (for mana draining), pegasi (to increase mana cost), and mages (to decrease mana cost). When attacking the Castle, we kill our own ballista, and since we don't have archers, the computer doesn't attack us. We position the bears near the walls and throw a clone into the computer's Castle, where the bear clone first takes out the flying units and then the rest. At the same time, we drain the computer's mana to 0. Then we resurrect and win. This strategy was developed and used by Richard Chen in the Wayfarer walkthrough. And it seems to have become very popular among the Chinese.
There were also a couple of things that were unclear:
1) On the 2nd day of the game, after freeing Cuthbert, why did he leave Mullich without units to expand!? That is, Mullich was without units for expansion, while Cuthbert had a horse and a knight. Is this even legal?
2) On the first week, he was defeating archangels with only fairies and no angel using Luna. Is this also legal?
3) It turns out that you can break through the legion of bears near the 3rd angel Castle without a war machine! By blinding the bears, hitting with archangels, and blinding them again.
Interestingly, angels are built in the first Castle on day 116. And some individuals even manage to capture the second Castle on day 117 (!). Although it doesn't really make much sense.

Some of their "hard" maps are a test of patience (reload-RNG) in my opinion - see ljmvbc.

Good point. I have a maps from this author in my list and its always good to be aware of this things.

btw, do you know if Aeris (or someone?) is still around for new masterpieces?

We are serious need a new blood for good challenge and original maps:)

1) How could he, on the 2nd day of the game, after freeing Cutber, leave Mullich without any units to attack with!? Meaning, Mullich was without units for the attack, while Cutber had a horse and a knight. Is this even legal?

I didn't understand this either.

2) On the first week, he was defeating archangels with only fairies and without an angel. Is this also legal?

I have some thoughts on this. The strategy is the same as with one angel, and in terms of losses, it should be two fairies. I can try to demonstrate it in a video.

I have a question about the Paragon map... my enemy doesn't want to go for the suicide run, but persistently attacks my heroes. Can you explain why this is happening?
Also, another question. Is it worth killing the green guy this way, or is it better to level up, defeat him properly, and take the artifacts?

Here are some immediate questions for you:
1. At the start, the bonuses for all players are different - the pink player received an artifact. You shouldn't do this on custom RPG maps: it's better to give everyone a gold bonus, unless the author specifies otherwise (those who like freebies can give themselves a bonus - an artifact). Bonus artifacts can disrupt the game or make it more difficult (sometimes - easier, if it's your bonus). The same applies to enemy resources.
2. If you are so strictly following the Manuals, why didn't you take Fire Magic for Mograine on day 3? After all, you chose a difficulty of 160%, and it would have been very desirable to do so! The importance of Fire Magic is very great, especially if you are not an expert.
What I think about the situation.
Why doesn't the enemy run to the resources, but attacks? The AI's behavior is not always clear to us, the players. Perhaps you should have moved further away. Maybe WSW was just lucky that the enemy didn't attack.
Most likely, you should try to open this guardian later, with a stronger hero and a larger army, and in the meantime, do something else. There is no single, absolutely correct step-by-step solution - different approaches are possible. Only the key objects and events should be exactly as the author intended.
And if your level is as you wrote, it's better to leave this map for now: its time has not yet come. Relax and start something easier. "Paragon" is definitely not for all players. Those who have completed it are definitely above average. It may seem that there are many such people, but there are many more players in "Heroes 3" in total. Some have completed "Paragon" on "easy" difficulty, but even in this case, it is only easier in terms of resources and troops, and the battles are still difficult.
Finally, some joker made a "childish" version of the map with Mograine, who starts with 9999 Azure Dragons, all 4 spellbooks, and all 8 tents nearby without guards. Anyone can complete that. :D

1) How could he, on the 2nd day of the game, after freeing Cutber, leave Mullich without any units to expand with!? Meaning, Mullich was without units for expansion, while Cutber had a horse and a knight. Is this even legal?

A bug related to army transfer in the original SOD.

I didn't understand this either.

I have some thoughts on this. The strategy is the same as with one angel; in terms of losses, it should result in two fairies being lost. I can try to demonstrate it in a video.

Just to be clear, here's a Chinese-style explanation of the exploit.
I know that boosting a hero without units is a good and fast strategy, and that it can be done by hiding the hero in a castle and then dismissing a unit through the kingdom view. But in the HD mod, this seems to be fixed. However, it is definitely prohibited in the "house rules."
Later, I saw screenshots from a player showing that they had the Heroes executable file open, an internet browser, and Paint (or something similar) for taking screenshots. No Prospector, no HD+.