Posts from Walkthroughs for custom maps. Auto-translated

Marmot, I'm trying to record a video, but it's a long process.

Okay, the main question is: can this enemy be defeated in this situation?

Yes, you can. I'll send the video in a private message in a couple of minutes.

Thanks, I'll check it out now!

Feel free to post videos here as well, because sometimes you're looking for a way to defeat someone, but there are hardly any videos available. This way, at least, you can find various strategies here.

Who understood the point of the purple hero on this map? On 200% difficulty, he stood for 7 days and died without a castle, without even attempting to attack the black knights.

Good day!

I don't recall a purple hero in the game; maybe he died in the first week as well. Lucky that his hero's death wasn't needed by the seers, unlike the deaths of Drag, Adrienne, ANTYSMOK — I'd have gone crazy playing that myself)).
I'm trying to take the castle, a few more assaults and I'll finish it off.

Added 38 minutes later

Xaart, greetings!
Thanks for the feedback and the link. I occasionally look at that Polish site. I hadn't pointed to this map before, and it wasn't in my collection, but I've now downloaded it. I read your report and the translation of the discussion, and it immediately became clear why everything seemed so familiar: well, yes, the map's author is BARTER, the creator of "Zemsta Mutare", and, as DDoS wrote there, "Mutare's Revenge" is a continuation of this story. This immediately raises concerns about an extremely long game (well, the author loves legions of monsters!) and possible impassability, either due to player mistakes or author errors. By the way, a video recently appeared — "Vampire Lords vs. Azure Dragons" — featuring a single battle from another map by BARTER: "Legiony Potworów". The title translates exactly as "Legions of Monsters". And that game is already on month 28!
In general, several maps by this author are posted on Maps4Heroes; this way you can find them by the nickname.

Completed the map from BARTER's list — "Piekielna bitwa"

http://www.maps4heroes.com/heroes3/maps.php?keywords=Piekielna+bitwa&type=&size=&difficulty=&sort=3

The game took 7 months, I played as Necropolis. The author has a love for Grails); on this map, practically all towns have them, and for those that don't — the map itself builds one in a couple of months (the same thing on the Legiony potworow map). Also, all artifacts are stated to be in the game, except for Angel Wings, Wizard's Hat, and Tome of Air Magic (Flight and Dimension Door are forbidden). All heroes receive Legion Statues, and there are no problems with resources or population. I liked the map; there are many monsters of various sizes, lucky that the seers and guardians didn't hinder the walkthrough)). I dealt with the enemies fairly easily, and access to them wasn't difficult.

It was a different story with Red; I had to put some work into him. On land, the exit to him was blocked by a garrison with a legion of Azure Dragons, Arch Devils, and Archangels. I could never break through them. Red himself was also unable to get out, although he had amassed considerable strength with several Inferno, Dungeon, and Necropolis towns. There was also a second passage to him through Orange's (Inferno) underground, closed by red gates and guarded by 4000 Azure Dragons and 4000 Titans. Thanks to the Cloak of the Undead King, 25000 mighty liches took out both the Azures and the Titans; from there it was just a matter of technique.

Now I'm playing through "Legiony potworow", playing as Necropolis (in principle, the choice is limited: either Necropolis or Stronghold), and it's month 8 of the game. Killed off Pink with Stronghold, took all the towns with Grails below Blue, the walkthrough is tough; reached Blue (Tower), with the main hero Dragon leading a legion army, who has to be killed to open the guardian (naturally).

What I didn't like: the necromancer Lord Haart, stated in the game, is deprived of necromancy, but during the game he receives a Town Portal with the ability to choose a castle. I took Moandor, necromancy is fine, but this hero cannot learn Town Portal. Tried with Septienna — same thing. I'm struggling with swapping heroes: Moandor fights, accumulating skeletons, with the Amulet of the Necromancer and the Vampire's Cloak; Haart serves as a troop supplier. I hope after Dragon I'll find the Dead Man's Boots for the Cloak of the Undead King.

Feel free to post your videos here as well, because sometimes you're looking for a way to defeat someone, but there are hardly any videos available. This way, we can at least find various strategies here.

This is about the battle with Mutare on the "Wayfarer" map. So far, she's the first opponent I haven't been able to find the right approach for and defeat. See how Vladimir Belkin did it here (starting at 1 hour 16 minutes). If Marlo Stanfield doesn't mind, I'll also post a link to his video.
Also, this might be interesting: video of a battle with 21,000 creatures on cursed land (although you don't need to go there and fight them; there's a workaround).
By the way, yesterday I watched a video of the final (?) battle on the "Unleashing the Bloodthirsty" map: How to kill Dragonmaster, and the AI also makes incredibly stupid moves, which is what allows him to be defeated. Unfortunately, although the video author posted a save file, it turned out that it's not from right before this battle, so it's not possible to check how it can be done (I haven't completed this map yet).

Here's the video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pe6Qp8CyFsM

But there's nothing special about it. Power field + healing. And he didn't play the ending very well.

The most interesting thing is that the AI's behavior still surprises me; I never know what it will do next. It might seem to be idle for a long time, and then suddenly it will snap to attention and pull some trick! For some reason, I can't replicate the same battle strategy myself. I'm trying to replace the Archangels as a defensive unit with Azure Dragons (I currently have 7 of them), as they can't be slowed down. For a while, everything goes well, but suddenly the enemy remembers that they have the "Explosion" spell, which kills my Azure Dragons, and they immediately replace them with their own dragons, after which my Titans don't last long. Perhaps I should use more Azure Dragons; there are plenty of dwellings for them. What interests me most is: how was it originally intended by the author, and what method should be used to defeat Mutare?

I've noticed that the computer prioritizes the explosion spell after slowing down the enemy, so if the Azure units aren't slowed, the computer will immediately attack them with the explosion. Regarding the author's intention: if the hero's secondary skills are randomly assigned, there won't be a universal tactic.

Added after 28 minutes
You can also periodically cast a spell to remove buffs on the Azure units while they are waiting, and then immediately cast a power field at the beginning of the next round. This will keep the computer busy with a cyclical casting of the same spells.

Marlo_Stanfield, thanks, I'll try that too. I'll also try to get Black Dragons: enemy magic doesn't scare them, but they gradually die from tower shots and archers. The question is only about their number. Azure Dragons help by periodically causing fear in enemy troops, but this is also a random factor that works with a large variance. And Yog has high morale.
I forgot to add my favorite comparison: sometimes the AI is as unpredictable as a monkey with a grenade! :D

"And the secret was so simple!" (C) I.A. Krylov :)
When I looked at the Seer's Hut, where I need to give the Power of the Father Dragon, it finally dawned on me what I was doing wrong (or rather, not doing): this guy gives Berserk for the MOD! And when I started sorting through my treasures in my backpack, as I suspected a little earlier, I already have all 9 parts! Hold on, Mutare, I'm coming! :smile10:
For the sake of fairness, I should note that Belkin also managed without Berserk, and no one has told me yet that I should already have it.
Here's another one I found video of this battle from the "Heroes 3 Combats" channel. He fought Mutare on the 60th month! And he also had resource overflow on the 56th month due to the long game! He probably played for so long because he couldn't find some secrets himself (and not just 90,000 ore, although the mini-map shows that he has already found it and given it).

DarkT1me,
You should ask the author about the meaning. For now, the map is only available on that Polish website. I would really like to ask the author many questions about "Zemsta Mutare," but the need to register there and write in Polish is discouraging, and most importantly, I anticipate (with a probability of about 90%) that the author simply won't answer.

Marmot, I'm not the author, of course, but I'll try to help with this map - Zemsta Mutare. I just finished it. Without cheats, on 7-4-1 difficulty.
90% of the map can be completed without any difficulties; the remaining 10% consists of interesting battles in antimagic garrisons, initially with a garrison of 9999 creatures of each type: Azure Dragons, Archangels, Archdevils, Titans, Chaos Hydras, Naga Queens, Champions.
At first, I thought that they didn't need to be defeated, and they couldn't be defeated, but they can be defeated, of course, only by someone from the armor-wearing units; in my case, it was Tazar. He was the one who did it.
The second condition for defeating this garrison is farming skeletons. By 7-2-1, I had about 185,000 of them (Vidomina and Isra). But if I had started leveling them up a little earlier, right from the beginning of the game, I think there would have been more than 200,000.
I decided not to fight the final boss - the Dragon with an army: Azure Dragons (9999), Titans (9999x4 stacks), Naga Queens (9999x2 stacks) because it would be difficult to defeat him with the forces I have (UPD - HE CAN'T BE DEFEATED AT ALL :). And waiting for reinforcements is boring. Therefore, I captured all the castles, and the Dragon died on his own.
Ask questions if you have any :)
7-4-1 is not about speed; I was leveling up 10 heroes at the same time (all logistics, 2 necromancers, Tazar, Mulich, etc.) because I didn't know who would be more useful, although from experience, I knew that Tazar carries almost all battles on XL author maps. And, yes, there was also a mistake in the skills: I couldn't get "attack" for Tazar, which would have made the walkthrough much easier, but the last skill that appeared was air (useless in the antimagic garrison :).
P.S. It is probably possible to kill the dragon, perhaps by trapping him in a castle or during a castle defense. To do this, you can free him; he will capture the nearest dungeon (you need to prevent him from doubling his mana). Judging by the prospector, he only gets the initial prayer for the Angel Alliance and has speed from spells. Accordingly, if you sit in a castle behind a force field with Azure Dragons + Archangels + 1,400 Titans, you can destroy the ballista, give berserk, and the Azure Dragons will kill all the Titans. It is better to sit in the castle while the Dragon doesn't know anything other than prayer and speed from spells. In general, there are options for killing him, but I don't have time to test them all :)

Zemsta Mutare. I just finished it. No cheats, difficulty 7-4-1.

kolotok, awesome! I'm speechless!
I thought that the anti-magic garrisons on the Blue lands could only be broken through with months-long breaks for replenishing troops. But the Dragon can be defeated. I specifically checked this: I enabled Flight for Mutare using a cheat code, flew over all the garrisons, and then attacked. An expert berserker captures the Azure and Titan troops around them; you need to defeat the Naga kings first, and then move away so that the Azure troops attack the top stack of Titans. The remaining stack of Azure troops is blinded; we reduce their defense with a devastating beam and overwhelm them with our troops – I had vampire lords and their clones. There was barely enough mana. By the way, he can't move from his location: I just checked in the editor (so, the library, to which only he has access, is a bug by the author). You just need to prevent him from receiving troops from another hero.
And what did you do about the author's mistakes? I played the self-corrected version: instead of hero camps, I placed Mutare and Alamar, and removed the Angel Alliance from the Dragon's hand: it was this that caused the game to crash for me and others (I was playing SoD, were you? In HotA, this bug has been fixed, as far as I know). I also marked 2 things that should also be changed: the Grail is better buried in a specific location, inaccessible to enemies (with 4 obelisks, they easily dug it up), and 1599 Hellspawn should simply be given to the player immediately in a specific location (how did you "enjoy" collecting them?!).
And here are 2 comments about necromancy:
1. I didn't plan for it and didn't collect skeletons, and the King of the Dead's Cloak and Vampire Mantle are not on the map, and you can't get enough liches. In addition, in the final stage of the game, all the "meat" has long been destroyed, and there are too few troops from the Necropolises (by the way, it was the Necromancers who placed the Grail).
2. The author, even if he had such a clever plan (which I am not sure about at all!), did not hint anywhere about the need to use such a strategy. But I'm afraid there was no clever plan at all, and the goal was to "create a cool map that no one will complete!" (some authors have this "childhood disease"). So far, I haven't seen a single accurate, reliable report that someone has completed this map to the end, winning. There is only a screenshot of a video that is no longer available, where one player broke through the last, most difficult garrison (it seems on the 59th or 69th month), later he attacked the Dragon again, but could not defeat him. And he was playing in HotA, which creates some differences (for example, due to the accumulation of troops in external dwellings, it is possible to assemble a larger army).

I've completed the first episode so far; I need to refine the report a bit before posting it here. I liked the map, although I have some comments and complaints for the author. The second episode is in the queue, waiting to be played...

What should I do in the first episode at the end of the game near the Conflux castle? I traded the Book of Fire Magic for Archdevils in the middle of the game, and now I can't open the passage to the castle. Also, I don't have enough parts for the Angel Alliance, although I might have given some away for a quest. Is this a trick by the author to confuse and make you give away the necessary items?

kolotok, awesome! I'm speechless!
And what did you do with the author's errors? I played the version that I personally corrected: instead of hero camps, I placed Mutare and Alamar themselves, and removed the Angel Alliance from the Dragon's hand: it was precisely this that caused the game to crash for me and not just me (I was playing SoD, were you? As far as I know, this bug has been fixed in HotA). I also noted 2 things that should also be changed: it's better to bury the Grail in a specific location, inaccessible to enemies (with 4 obelisks, they easily dug it up), and just give the player 1599 Hellspawn at once in a specific location (how did you "enjoy" collecting them?!).

Marmot, good afternoon!
I downloaded Zemsta Mutare twice, once from the Heroes Portal and once from a Polish source - both times the map gives an error (Error: Abnormal Program Termination) on the second week. I don't know why this is happening; the same error sometimes occurs on other maps, and, most frustratingly, sometimes just a few steps from completing the game.

Could you share the corrected version of Mutara?