Posts from Walkthroughs for custom maps.

You can save all the archers in the first battle if you want, but it's not necessary.

I don't know how, but we still need to get rid of them, otherwise we won't be able to capture the city in 7 days.

It seems that the battle from Deeply Inundated Dungeon, the one with the amulet and hypnosis, has also been reworked. Honestly, I don't understand why :confused:

Good map, I recommend it to everyone. It has a few battles.

Two-hex creatures take one damage when passing through fire, and if they stand on two fires at the same time, they take double damage. Also, neutrals can clearly see the firewall and easily bypass it if possible. Sometimes, neutrals may change their priority target if the firewall prevents them from reaching the first target.

War of the 7 realms

Author: Barbuta
Source: http://www.maps4heroes.com/heroes3/maps.php?keywords=War+of+the+7+realms&type=&size=&difficulty=&sort=3

Huge thanks to Marmot for the review of the War of the 7 Realms map. I simply wouldn't have gotten around to writing a full walkthrough review otherwise. Therefore, I won't repeat what was said and will just add my two cents.

It is obvious at first glance—and the author writes this himself—that he was inspired by well-known map makers, and in certain places, he repeats their "widely known in narrow circles" tricks, such as killing a red dragon with a ballista using a fire shield.
What I definitely liked a lot about the map is the presence of a plot. There isn't much text, but it is clear and provides a good atmosphere during the walkthrough. This point is often missed in Chinese maps because nothing is understandable there :) this is a definite plus for the map.
The micro-battle tasks were also liked, though they didn't cause much difficulty. The only thing I had to go to the Maps4Heroes forum to figure out was killing the enemy Angelena by casting hypnosis on her and then shooting her with a bolt. I didn't know that in such a case an arrow (bolt) could be applied to a hypnotized stack, whereas if there is a charm against arrows, this is impossible under normal circumstances. This was perhaps the only battle that was unclear to me.
Furthermore, as you progress through the map, its difficulty drops significantly. The presence of many archangels—and most importantly, snipers—as well as wizards later on, allows you to simply shoot down enemies at the end of the game. The final bosses fell without any complications at all.

I did several starts to see the skill tree development, mainly so that Leon could develop Earth Magic and expert it as early as possible, although I assume this isn't mandatory. I gave him "neutral luck" as a starting artifact; it wasn't needed, but the skill tree developed just right.

Week 1
Day 1 didn't decide much; Angelena goes to take creature external dwellings, starting in direction 18-30 and then counter-clockwise. With Leon, we visit the Earth Magic hut; don't get distracted by gold piles.
Day 2. Astral takes the blue tent; Leon stands opposite the healing shrine, not far from the blue guardian.
Day 5. Angelena took all external dwellings around the castle and is preparing to take the angel dwelling to the south. Astral took all available monk dwellings and is preparing to head to the teleport.
Day 7. On the night of the 7th day, we wait for Leon in the castle for a hero attack due to the guardians; we kill him. At the end of the 7th day: Astral reached the green tent and entered the angel city Ragnar; there is no one in the castle, so we will hold the defense from the castle—place 7 monks at the top, 12 upgraded ones at the bottom, and divide 7 angels as 1-2-2-1-1. At night, we defend against King Barn and lose only 1 monk, essentially without losses; a small growth in the castle is ours. Expert Earth Magic + initial shooting helped.
And Queen Sarna holds a battle against Mauron in the castle. The strategy is simple—same as in Metataxer: hit the catapult, summon water elementals, shoot down dragons when they cannot fly into the castle.
Leon spends the night near the weakness shrine.

With Astral, we rush forward, visiting only skill upgrades and ignoring resources and mines, although this might be a mistake and I should have visited them. Since I won't return here for another couple of months.
1-2-5 Astral starts already in a boat on the lake; army: 50 High Elves, 12 upgraded monks, 5 archangels, 15 upgraded archers, and 10 upgraded spearmen—for fodder. Be sure to land near the lighthouse; this will be needed for all other heroes at sea, take resources, kill vampires. Here I carelessly checked the map editor and didn't exchange the dwarf shield for a phoenix, but it's not critical. This would have been necessary for an ultra-speedrun if fighting 7000 of the enemy's phoenixes in the first months. I just blinked. If I had noticed, maybe I would have done an ultra-speedrun, but that's not certain :)
1-3-1 Angelena visits creature dwellings and buys what she can; it will be useful later. Leon bought a few snipers, Black Shores is already ours, Astral crossed the lake.
1-3-3 a very important day. Astral kills Stonis, and Leon with boots of levitation flies over the sea and spends the night at the elf dwelling (simultaneously making snipers there). Fiona attacks us with superior forces, but the "papal" terrain (See screenshot) allows us to lose only centaurs and -2 snipers; I had to replay the battle 10-15 times, it was a struggle.
1-3-4 Leon frees Queen Sarna, and Astral takes East pomorie castle.

There is no point in describing further in detail; Marmot described everything thoroughly. I will only touch upon a few points.

The trick with Xixaxoxexuxy and saving Astral. On 1-4-5, I free this purple enemy hero with 7000 phoenixes; he goes to take the tent. I move Astral back a bit, then further west—to East pomorie castle, to buy growth on 2-1-1 (slow troops, including 231 peasants for the quest, staying in one of the mines; the enemy ignores them). On 2-1-2 he runs south to the general respawn (you can leave him piles of resources as bait), and I take everyone from the mine and run to the sea exit. And then the trick: on 2-1-3, I visit a pond with Astral, while Xixaxoxexuxy went off to his own business, whereas our hero Queen Sarna sailed to us. And on 2-1-4, she gives Leon the boots of levitation and he flies wherever he needs over the sea, thus saving himself. This goes against the author's idea, who writes: give artifacts and army to Leon and kill Astral!
I read the author's recommendation to give all artifacts and troops via Astral and die against the hero with phoenixes. Now I realize that in the lake, one should have exchanged the shield for a phoenix, given it all to Leon, died with Astral, then taken the black orb from behind the post with Leon, and with it and shooters+phoenix somehow kill Zidar's 7000 phoenixes. That is, do everything by the 4th-5th month. Essentially, you can get the Black Orb as early as the 2nd month, but here you need to calculate how many snipers and magic are needed to shoot down 7000 phoenixes under blindness, clone, haste, and with a cart, of course. It's possible it could be done by the 2nd-3rd month. Perhaps this could have been pulled off somehow. This would give an unreal pace, both in terms of leveling up and having an additional castle with archangels, and the ability to easily travel to your other castles for growth.
I consciously decided to do everything differently than the author wrote and save Astral, since he is a scholar and will immediately retrain everyone. For example, I took blindness long before Zentimo castle. Plus clone from Mephala. It was decided that Astral would help with collecting respawns, easier battles, logistics, gathering external dwellings, etc. Therefore, Astral lived with me until 7-1-6! When I had already opened everything, killed everyone, and then needed to give the black orb for passage to the sands.
Saving Astral is a non-obvious move that can be compared to using traps on maps (especially walking on water in necropolis lands, sending a hero "one way") etc., so I thought the author intended it exactly this way—to "break through." But then I carefully read his recommendations and text and see that he didn't intend it. In general, implementing the author's idea to kill Astral is simple: set an "eternal" event with an attack by 1 peasant and 2 or 3 swan ponds. Basically, make it so Astral has to be delayed twice at the swan ponds, then he wouldn't escape.

And Angelena goes through tactical battles (not very difficult) and takes the black tent. Here I also want to note that it would have been desirable for the author to provide a way for Angelena to return to the starting castle so she could at least continue collecting growth; otherwise, from the start of the second month until the end of the game, she just sits stupidly in the castle. Therefore, attention! Take the black tent with Angelena not in the 2nd month, but at least in the 5th-6th, when the black guardian appears. As a result, I missed out on significant growth of angels and monks.

Further, the map was completed more or less easily.
Regarding the choice of who to kill: Wizardino or Zentimo, in testing I killed both.
Although Wizardino is easier to kill. You can leave Wizardino with a few nags and hide archangels and snipers behind a forcefield; you don't need all troops. Or you can use Archdevils and quicksand. Not a difficult battle. But I decided to kill and killed Zentimo according to the scenario on 611. Strategy: place one fly under the titans, revive it, and so on until the titans are shot down. Screenshot №2 of the battle and the hero before the battle is attached. You can blind the genies—specifically them—and shoot the genie masters so they don't cast haste or prayer on the titans too much and don't fly out the gates. You could also use mass slow as an option. As soon as the enemy finishes summoning elementals and loses titans, he will start using strike magic on our shooters. Therefore, it is desirable to apply anti-magic to the cart, and through clone raise archangels for the shooters. Clone raises more than the computer kills with explosions, so mana consumption is in our favor. In general, the battle is long but not very difficult. Without losses, except for flies. You can also use a health elixir in battle; our stacks won't melt as quickly from the computer's explosions.

Another trick, which seems to me unforeseen by the author, is related to the possibility of returning with one of the heroes to the starting castles bypassing the enemy Xixaxoxexuxy. For this:
− you can easily use someone (for example, Astral or Leon, or even Mephala), with boots of speed and a set of boots of levitation, having previously visited the fountain of luck near the home castle Londrovin, calmly go to Xiron's respawn and travel back to your own home castles! There are unbought angels/archangels, monks, archers in Ragnar and Baradia. And then return back!
With growth from these castles, battles against Wizardino or Zentimo become easy.

Another trick: killing Astral against hero Xixaxoxexuxy, take the orb of vulnerability earlier, and with blindness, a cart, phoenix, and snipers kill him in the first months. The task is not easy—7000 phoenixes after all—but IMO, realistic. I didn't test it, but it seems to me that you can give Astral away veeeeery early, take the sphere and with a cart, sufficient number of snipers and blindness (which, by the way, can be retrained immediately, from Mephala in my case, rather than trekking to Zentimo's castle), clone and double mana, it might be possible to beat Xixaxoxexuxy right at the start of the game. The main thing is to have enough mana. And if so, then with the blade of Armageddon you can travel the map, especially its beginning, like a walk in the park. I assume this is implementable, realistic, and could provide a greater pace than saving Astral. Well, if the Phoenixes stay in the garrison, killing them early is a piece of cake. That's also a minus.
The black orb will allow you to blind all opponents, including Zentimo's titans in subsequent months. I only realized this after completing it, but maybe some brave soul will find out!

Another trick. If you move heroes back and forth near Xeron's respawn, he might—and this happened to me!—leave ALL 7000 phoenixes in the garrison, while he himself travels with a bunch of archangels and growth from castles. I caught him that way and even killed (!) him with Astral alive, which made the map unbeatable. Thus, I had to first kill 7000 phoenixes in the garrison without a hero, then die with Astral against Xiron, and only then kill Xiron with Leon.
I think it's a minus that the computer can leave the army in the garrison without a hero. After all, 7000 phoenixes on Xeron is power, but in the garrison they fall apart in no time.

Further, for the plot, it doesn't matter much who we kill. Essentially, we are only given a choice to take a necklace +3 morale / +3 luck in one place, while Wizardino would have given prayer. Both can be very useful in the final battle, but not critical.

Another minus could be the joining of a bunch of forces in the form of monks and zealots, and later archdevils, to the hero in the final part of the map. I am 100% sure that creature joins should be forbidden for the hero in the final stage and final bosses should be dismantled with what you have. Especially since, having the black orb, taking down the last one is a piece of cake.

In conclusion, not the most difficult map, several small minuses. But good plot and gameplay. 7.5/10 can be given.
Finished the map on 8-4-2, although now I see that with proper pacing it's quite realistic to complete it, probably in about 5-6 months, but with great effort.

I figured it out myself; it's quite amusing. When the computer has no other option but to attack, and it ends up standing on a Wall of Fire, if there's a weak unit, like a level 1 unit, in front of the wall, it won't attack because it decides it's not worth it. This works even on magic-immune dragons, and it's definitely a bug that has long since become a feature, used by creators of hardcore maps. I know I'm not inventing anything new; I just wanted to share it, in case someone doesn't know.

By the way, a question for those who have played Metataxer.

War of the 7 realms
Author: Barbuta
Source: http://www.maps4heroes.com/heroes3/maps.php?keywords=War+of+the+7+realms&type=&size=&difficulty=&sort=3

Thank you very much, Marmot, for the review of the War of the 7 Realms map. I wouldn't have gotten around to writing a full walkthrough without it. So, I won't repeat myself and will just add my two cents.

Near the war school in the forest, there is a well, from which a hidden passage leads to a guard post containing fairies and an ambush.
Use the pathfinding mode in the editor; it's very helpful in such maps: everything hidden becomes visible.