Posts from Verzhak’s company is on the champion.

But his indifference to mines and failure to utilize the obvious advantages of a level 24 hero are concerning. What do you advise? I installed the game clean, without any add-ons or Equilibris, but I definitely remember that even without them, my computer was quite capable in my childhood, and by the end of the second week, he was already trying to attack me with a large army. Could it be due to Windows 10?

It seems that's how it's designed – the goal is to defeat him. If he starts playing right away, you won't have time to react before he arrives.

Added 26 minutes later
I also completed the Barbarians on Champion difficulty – with a poison potion, but without morale. I'll write down my tactics.
1) First, use the hero to capture mines.
2) Leave one Berserker to buy more Berserkers (they can buy, but the hero must capture the buildings).
3) As soon as Centaurs appear, separate two and send them to guard the cart with potions, collecting resources along the way.
4) 1 battle with the Centaurs at the beginning, guarding the chest and artifact. The strategy is as follows: the densest formation with Berserkers in the center (keep them contained so they don't run away), Verjak in front, Centaurs one by one also in front – 2 large groups of Centaurs in the back. Try to make Verjak take the main damage. Have the Centaurs shoot so that the return fire is directed at Verjak. Before the enemy Centaurs have only one shot left, hide Verjak, as for some reason, their last shot is very powerful. Then, as they approach, release the Berserkers, and they will take them down + Centaurs in direct fire.
5) Save before taking experience from the chest. Choose shooting as the skill for the level.
6) Defeat the Centaurs at the stronghold in a similar way to the previous ones.
7) Before each battle, run to the fountains of strength and luck.
8) Then, almost immediately, as described, defeat the first pirates – the formation is almost the same, but Verjak is behind on the right. One Centaur in front.
9) Then, accumulate troops and try to capture the pirates on the island every week.
10) Defeat the pirates on the island in the same way as in the previous scenario and as described with the poison potion – but I didn't have a morale potion, so I defeated almost all of them and didn't run around for long. Use poison from the bow to shoot down everyone. I had 2 squads of pirates and 2 thieves.

And further in the scenario:
11) Level up Verjak only in his ability to the maximum (you can skip magic resistance), somewhere you'll find scouting, which is also a useful skill.
12) Around level 10, buy a lot of potions of immortality, and Verjak walks alone (without an army) until the end of the campaign and defeats everyone :)

...used a cheat to reveal the entire map and started watching what the computer was doing. And it's struggling. That is, it's building something, gathering something, but it's doing everything extremely inefficiently. And yet, I remember how, as a child, it made me furious on the "Normal" difficulty (which is right after "Beginner"). Strictly speaking, it doesn't seem like a bug; the computer is even using portals to attack. But the disregard for mines and the failure to utilize the obvious advantages of a level 24 hero are concerning... Could it be due to Windows 10?

The problem is that on difficulty level 5, neutral armies are three times stronger than on level 2, and 4.5 times stronger than on level 1. And the AI hero's armies can be pre-set and sometimes don't even grow over time. But the neutral armies do grow. The AI hero sees that the enemy is stronger and that it will lose, so it's afraid to engage in battle and use some other abilities. After all, it can only use the tactics that are programmed into it; it can't select individual units, etc. But a human can use unconventional tactics and destroy large enemy forces with small forces.

I've just started playing through the game on champion difficulty. I've already completed Goldota and Lysander, and I'll be doing Verzhak next. I'm playing all of this on the Equilibrium map.

Let me add my two cents.

I managed to complete that infamous first mission on my third try, thanks to an interesting bug (or maybe it wasn't a bug at all). But let's go through it step by step:

1) Neutrals and liberating cities weren't a problem for me. What I struggled with the most were the blue heroes with armies 2-3 times larger than mine and terrifying hordes of Cyclops and Ogres.

2) I found myself in an endless loop: I would capture a city, move on to take another, and the blue faction would immediately recapture the previous one. At the same time, I was constantly losing troops, while the blue faction was increasing theirs, as they usually had 1-2 more cities due to the number of heroes and because in the first few weeks, I had almost depleted my reserves fighting neutrals.

3) But I got lucky with that bug. Or maybe it was just an AI flaw. In short, the computer for some reason really doesn't like it when I capture its buildings with Cyclops and Ogres. It immediately leaves the city to reclaim the building. And this can be used to direct it where and when we need it. After leading it around for a while and catching two relatively weak troops, I managed to capture 3/4 of the cities (two Dungeon cities and one at the very top, which we get for the ore cart).

After that, the situation developed so that I was standing with an army not far from the last blue city, one thief was guarding the Cyclops and Ogre dwellings, and the AI refused to leave the city, presumably fearing to lose it. Well, after that, victory was just a matter of time. After waiting for a few weeks (to avoid messing anything up) and gathering some reinforcements, I moved in for the assault and completed the scenario.

It's possible that the size of your troops won't be enough to intimidate the blue faction to the point where it stops leaving its cities, or that one of its armies will survive and constantly recapture your cities. In that case, I would keep the northern Dungeon city (as it's the only city with a stronghold and level 3 buildings) and use two thieves to control the Cyclops caves and the Ogre dwelling, buying up the reinforcements with caravans. Then, again, we gather a strong army and start taking them out.

I completed the campaign on champion difficulty. In the first mission, I used the described strategy of acquiring the necessary potions from the shop: "Hellfire" and a potion that lowers morale. I defeated the first pirates with a 2-1-3 formation, then gathered troops from the buildings again and attacked Tomi Creek, leaving only Verjak and 24 centaurs: in this battle, you need to separate the individual centaurs, use the main centaur stack to shoot at the pirates in a straight line (let them get close enough), throw the morale-lowering potion at the pirates, and then it's easy, as the guards of the neutral cities switch to our command. After that, the campaign is easily completed with the help of the immortality potion.