Posts from Walkthroughs for custom maps. Auto-translated

Nasos, Congratulations! Great result =) As for challenges, I think of the unfinished speedrun of the Wayfarer map on the portal. It would be cool to complete it; there's a good chance of achieving a result that significantly exceeds the Chinese record.

What about Xiedu? Or is it simply that, logistically, it's impossible to get there any faster?

Can you recommend another worthwhile challenge?

I have two maps in mind that look impressive. Maybe you'll find them interesting.

What about Xiedu? Or is it simply that it's logistically impossible to go faster?

There's a walkthrough with pictures and descriptions for Xiedu. It needs to be checked. There's also this interesting starting save from a Chinese forum. This save is from an older version of Xiedu, and it seems that the randomness corresponds to what's shown in the 79-day speedrun, such as the same item dropping from a chest at 80.136.0.

The Wayfarer maps on maps4heroes and heroesportal are different, it's unclear which one to choose. It seems like they have their own version on Heroes Portal.

On Heroes Portal, they played the latest version of the map at that time, as far as I remember. The Chinese record was set on an older version. All the established saves for Heroes Portal can be downloaded here. There's a very good starting save there, so you might not even need to generate a new one.

Which hero do you think is best for playing through Wayfarer? I don't mean for speedrunning, but in general. Yog has stronger attacks, but he'll move slower across the map, while Ciel will run at lightning speed at higher levels, which is good and will help with completing the game. In my opinion, Gem is a bad choice because she falls too far behind her companions at the time of her release.

Which hero do you think is best for playing through the Wayfarer campaign? I don't mean for speedrunning, but in general. Yog has stronger attacks, but he'll move slower on the map, while Ciel will run at lightning speed at higher levels, which is good and will help with the playthrough. In my opinion, Gem is a bad option because she falls too far behind her companions by the time she's freed.

If it's not a speedrun and we're not in a hurry, then Yog wins 80-90% of all battles on the map.
Ciel is only for logistical functions: to go for distant artifacts, open a path, collect mines, reach a town so that the enemy doesn't have time to buy upgrades there, etc.
You yourself write "I don't mean speedrun," so the fact that Ciel runs faster doesn't matter at all. Let her run as fast as she wants, but Yog will fight the battles.
For a fast playthrough, all heroes without exception must have Logistics + Pathfinding so that they can run faster and further. There, by the way, you have to fight with all the heroes, based on the principle of who can reach where, just to be faster. In the 6-1-6 playthrough (or something like that), I carefully selected skills for everyone, and I had to fight with all the heroes based on the principle of "whoever reaches where, fights," and not who shoots better.

I have two maps in mind that look impressive. Maybe you'll find them interesting.

Indeed, they are impressive – I've been looking at Brave without Fear for 4 days now, and I still don't fully understand how to even get out of the starting areas.

I have two maps in mind that look impressive. Maybe you'll find them interesting.

The Brave without Fear map still looks dynamic; it has 3 starting heroes and the possibility to develop in any direction (I haven't analyzed the difficulty yet). As I see it, the idea of starting with Caitlin and choosing one of the heroes for an artifact was borrowed from some other map. I don't remember the name, it was also a Chinese map, I think. I had planned to play it, but I need to find it first.

The second map, Shan Hai Legend, is simply a start with 1 peasant, and the first few weeks/months are spent developing with zero combat stats, like a fairy against dwarves, dwarves against archers, archers against archons... Judging by the fact that it takes a very long time to reach the enemies, it's not clear why you would even fight them. The map is very linear and long; you have to travel part of the way through a swamp, and the start is very difficult due to the lack of an army and the inability to accumulate one anywhere. I understand that for the first 1-2 months, you need to be able to conduct micro-battles without magic and losses, and you need to have a lot of patience until you develop enough for impressive combat actions.

I have two maps in mind that look impressive. Maybe you'll find them interesting.

I've played Shan Hai Legend for 7 full months, and at 8-1-1, the situation is as follows:
1) I have only 2 castles on the map (I killed Valeska and got a castle, now I can build 4 archers per week + from my stash).
2) I have only 3 heroes.
3) My army consists of 15 archers, 10 titans, 500 grand elves, 3 crystal dragons, and about 25% of the army is in the castles, which I still need to retrieve.
4) I'm very lacking in magic: I have blindness, slow, prayer, force field, and I can get all the elements. I'm critically short on regeneration and town portal.
The heroes need to focus on ranged attacks, as our only strong ranged unit is grand elves.

I haven't had such a difficult and long start on any other map. The main problems are:
1) I only have one starting castle, and grand elves accumulate slowly.
2) The author didn't remove the checkmark on the map that prevents the number of monsters from increasing. As a result, from 50-100 neutral crystal dragons, for example, it has grown to 1-1.2 thousand. Some guards are simply impossible to defeat.
3) The guards on "events" are a major challenge, often consisting of two stacks of azure dragons, 2 stacks of sorceresses, a stack of archers, and/or mythical creatures, etc. That is, you usually can't blind them or hide behind a force field.
4) There are almost no stat boosters.
5) Pathfinding is disabled on the map, so traveling through swamps and snow is slow. Tactics are also disabled, so it's difficult to fight neutral guards.

My plan: in 2-3 months, I'll accumulate enough strength and try to break through some of the neutral guards. I might also capture the neutral tower in the southwest, although it is also very well guarded.
I plan to defeat Bron and then I can free my hero with the town portal, but this doesn't fundamentally solve the problem, as regeneration can only be obtained much later. I also plan to free the 4th hero from prison (Yog). But fundamentally, this won't change anything in the next couple of months.
One big plus is that we have Elleshar as one of our heroes, who has 900 mana, but his stats are 10=14=14=24, which is not very good.
As I said, getting a town portal is still somewhat realistic, but only one level 0 hero will know it. The problem is that we can only get clone-resurrection in the castle in the north, where we need to break through the giant guards, such as 100 sorceresses, 10 azure dragons, 22 mythical creatures, 2220 (TWO THOUSAND TWO HUNDRED AND TWENTY) archers, 22 mythical creatures, 10 azure dragons, 100 sorceresses.

Conclusion: it's very difficult to complete this map. The map is designed for a "VERY long" game. There are many battles with giant neutral forces, which are not all passable even after 7-10 months. It's almost impossible to gather enough strength, and it's impossible to fight without regeneration. There's no point in fighting the computer heroes at all.
The map is extremely tedious. I'm attaching a save file, so anyone who wants can take a look.
I'm not sure if I'll even finish it. Based on my calculations, I need to accumulate strength and, starting from some month, maybe the 15th or 20th, start breaking through the neutral guards, and this will be almost the beginning of the map

I've never spent so much time on a single map.

In fact, I got tired of it because the demonstration Chinese playthroughs of it exceed a 20-month playtime. The map's author is Woxin, by the way. The author of "Brave without Fear" is ljmvbc. This map is designed to be extremely dynamic, and the playthrough will be accompanied by an endless stream of computer-controlled enemies in all zones.

This map caught my eye precisely because the showcase Chinese Walkthroughs for it exceed a 20-month in-game duration. The map author is Woxin, by the way. The author of "Brave without Fear" is ljmvbc. This map is designed on the principle of ultra-dynamism, and the walkthrough will proceed to the accompaniment of an endless computer onslaught in all zones.

I know the author Woxin firsthand; I've completed almost all of his maps that I could find (somewhere around 6 out of 8). They are characterized by this very dynamism and the freedom of where to go (or rather, where to run away from the AI :)
But this map, Legend of Shan Hai, is, to put it mildly, too dragged out.
The AI armies are such that it's unclear when I'll have the strength to break them :)
Well, my update is that at 10-1-1 there is progress:
1) Killed 2 swamp-dwellers without losses and captured their castles, see screens. Done via mass blindness, then a strike from a blinded stack, 2 shots, and blindness again.
2) Broke through the guards at the "event" and in the north conquered another angel stash + 2 gold mines,
3) Finally captured a neutral Tower with minimal losses: fed 2 Faerie Dragons, 19 Wood Elves, and the main forces—1 Crystal Dragon, 1 Archangel, and the ones) received a growth of 39 Titans, though there is no money to buy them out. See screen, for example, taking the castle almost without losses (no Resurrection).
4) Freed Tazar, but he is not leveled up, and he has no chance to learn Intellect (it is locked on the map), so Tazar will likely remain a loser until the end of the map.
5) Elleshar reached level 42, stats grew to 16-19-18-33, but still significantly lower than the enemies (see screen for artifacts and leveling). It's a pity Elleshar got Attack; Air would have been significantly better at this stage. Perhaps Attack will pay off later.
6) The Admiral's Hat artifact helps a lot, as there are many landings/boardings to deliver troops and loot from stashes. It must not be swapped for the Path Guardian at point 130-89-0 (perhaps this should be done later).
In the 10th month, only 30-40% of the surface and 5% of the underground are still open :) ....

I've already accepted that I need to travel from castle to castle for growth. It's not very difficult, given the navigation available to Tsielka. The biggest problem remains the lack of restoration. Archangels can only restore once, and fighting against Azure+Faerie and/or ranged stacks and Archangels is extremely difficult, as neutrals immediately crash into all the shooters. In general, I need to amass enough strength to break through the next obstacle without losses or almost without losses.

Plans: visit the underground, get the Armageddon spell and Summon Elemental (this will take 2-3-4 weeks). And then either break through Bron and free the hero with Town Portal and/or burst into the enemies' central zone (this can be done in several ways—entry monolith, killing the Barbarian Shiva with a more or less reasonable army). In the central zone, I can take the blue tent + kill a couple of AI losers (though I think it will be very difficult to do without losses). In general, progress in the 8-9 month doesn't make the map hopeless :)

So, it's quite realistic that this map will stretch to 20 months. I remember someone on YouTube completed Wavewarer in 60 months, or something around that :)

P.S. It wouldn't be Woxin if the map were static :) at 10-1-4 the elite enemy heroes open the prisons and guards and fly to all parts of the respawn! Here we go! Given this, I rebuilt my strategy, and immediately after killing the 2nd swamp-dweller 9-2-7, I fly north with all my might. There, an enemy hero opens a green guardian and at 10-2-1 Elleshar enters a castle with restoration and Clone. It should be easier from here. Now I can catch weaker AI players and start minus-ing them.

Update: after learning Clone and Resurrection, the enemy armies are still impressive for conducting battles. Therefore, I lured all the enemy heroes in the north one by one into water traps on islands, and captured a Tower with BERSERK in the northwest, after which in the northeast I broke the wild neutral guards, took another castle, and the green tent. Almost all of the surface north is captured. 2 main AI heroes with Boots of Levitation—Müllich and Dessa (oh, how she travels half the map) descended into the underground and for some reason aren't coming out (?!). At 14-4-4 I killed the quest hero—the kindred spirit Andru, and at 14-4-6 I learned Town Portal with Elleshar. By 14-4-6, Elleshar's army is already impressive: 3 Azure, 170 Archangels (there are another 70-80 not yet bought), 125 Titans, etc.
Further completion of the map with Berserk, Town Portal, Resurrection, and Clone is just a matter of time.
It turns out that completing the map is "boring" only until the 7-8 month; after that, events develop rapidly.
Two things are a pity: I didn't manage to save Kiry from prison, the AI opened her, but she is also not leveled up and cannot learn Intellect, so it's not too bad, it seems.
And Tazar (not Yog, as I thought) still cannot level up with Intellect since it is forbidden, and 100-200 mana per battle is clearly not enough. Perhaps Tazar will be useful in the future in some anti-magic garrison. For now, the only "daddy" is Elleshar.
Plans: capture the second Tower in the north, as well as try to capture the Stronghold, minus all enemy heroes who are in traps on the islands and who are not immune to Berserk, and try to enter the center of the map.

UPDATE #2. According to the previous plan: captured the second Tower in the north, broke through Tiraxor with difficulty, then easily captured the Stronghold with Berserk, killing Kilgor. Now the bear growth is 25 per week, plus 100 added at events. Bears have become the strike stack. Killed many heroes on the map, cleared the center. Currently unable to defeat 3-4 heroes (lack of army), but they are locked in water traps, awaiting their hour. Almost all the surface is under control in the 17-18 month, but the AI aren't wandering underfoot. In the 19th month, I broke the guards to the underground, going to open the white tent. At 19-2-7, Elleshar travels with 20 Azure, 366 Archangels, 391 Titans, 8000 Grand Elves, 411 bears, and fanatics with archers (mostly for fodder in battles).

It actually caught my attention because the showcased Chinese playthroughs of it exceed a 20-month gameplay duration. The map author is Woxin, by the way. The author of "Brave without Fear" is ljmvbc. This map is designed with the principle of ultra-dynamism in mind, and the playthrough will be accompanied by an endless wave of computer-controlled enemies in all zones.

I glanced at a Chinese playthrough lasting 22 months, and the contrast between the battles in the first few months and after 12+ months was shocking. The enemies have some gigantic stacks, something similar to what I've only seen in conquest hell and heaven ult.ed. That's where 170k demons would be useful (I myself added 150k on that map). The map is interesting, but I'm even afraid to start, although I don't think it's very difficult, because there isn't a super-fast pace at the beginning.

Where do you look for Chinese maps and their walkthroughs?