Posts from Red crystal

I tried playing as the Elves, but without success. At first, everything was going well (since I had played the map several times before), and I relatively quickly obtained the Elven Luck artifact. But then, there was a problem: neither the castles nor the library had the "Antimagic" spell, and I wasn't strong enough yet to defeat the guardian of the Tome of Light. As a result, by the end of the second month of the game, my hero became a victim of another manipulator visitor. That's how it turned out.

The new version of the map won't load – when selecting the map, it has an empty name, and it's also impossible to start the game – the player selection is completely empty. The first version of the map works, but it's impossible to capture mines at a reasonable time – I captured a mine with fairies, constantly running away, only because warmongers were stationed there. My hero is level 5, with 1 fairy and 6 unupgraded dancers as troops, and the castle is useless, while I'm facing a hag with a hundred goblins, a horde of centaurs, and many warmongers.

The new version of the map won't load – when selecting the map, it has an empty name, and it's also impossible to start the game – the player selection is completely empty.

The latest version that was uploaded is fully functional. I played through it, and there's a message from Antik about this same version above. Check what went wrong on your end. Perhaps you didn't unpack the archive?
In the final version, the map turned out to be very good; many thanks to the author.

The first time, I didn't have a map with the name "red crystal"; instead, there was a map without a name (it literally had no name, the name was just a space), 6 players, L, and the game start was impossible. After playing HiddenCrystal.h5m, I deleted it and installed RedCrystal, and everything is displayed correctly.

In the first version, I easily lost to the elf. With the knight, I lost on the first hero (I barely had an army, and fire arrows didn't drop). With the marksman, I lost on the second mage – the first one was too scared to fight, ran to the respawn point, and became unreachable near the mage's window – the second mage killed him and was left with 120 gremlins. After that battle, I could try to turn the situation around with luck (take the luck flag, but I won't, because the next heroes will kill me anyway – I'll play on easy mode).

Interestingly, in my Necropolis campaign, only mages seem to work well. Is there a dependency of attackers on the player's race?

The new version is easier, though. My Necromancer, almost level 18, has 26 Liches, 68 Vampires, 119 Ghosts, 369 Rotting Zombies, and 240 Skeletons, plus a bunch of troops available for hire (though I'm short on gold). He already defeated one opponent with overall slowing and weakening effects. And now he's defeated a second one https://c2n.me/458aILA, and they are quite strong.

Not just strong, but really tough. He defeated two mages, then a Knight appeared and is now running around in the desert, so he's still alive. He also defeated a Dark Elf with his huge attack, and even without any losses – a yellow Knight Axel remains on the map. Then a Ranger appeared.

Soon, a Barbarian followed the Ranger, and that's really scary. With this https://c2n.me/458fuoz, https://c2n.me/458fvpd, and https://c2n.me/458fw7t, it's impossible to win against the Barbarian. I didn't get lucky with the spells; I had Blind and Unholy Word, but I didn't think to take control of the Vampire. Attacking the Barbarian in an open field resulted in my defeat. :(

However, there's a chance to defend by staying in the castle, and there's also a high probability that the AI will get tired of attacking.
And where did you see which creatures being produced? In my case, only Zombies are being produced, and there was also an outpost, but I can't get to it now, and I don't have the money to buy production. Even in the castle, it's scary to defend against this - https://c2n.me/458fzx4.


In short, I abandoned that game because it's impossible to play as the Necropolis. I replayed many battles against the Barbarians, but I only won when defending the castle, either by losing 60 Liches, 300 Ghosts, and 600 Skeletons, or by almost being completely defeated. And this is the only hero; the next ones are even stronger. The Barbarian there is just a regular one.

I started a new game with the overpowered Elves and a Fae - the first time, I was unlucky, and an even stronger Elf appeared. I started again, and this time I managed to defend, then there was a difficult battle with a Necromancer who uses the "Control" skill, where I had light magic, but no "Remove Curse" or "Antimagic" (and the Fae only managed to remove curses on the 5th try) - but after that, everything went smoothly; all the battles were difficult, but with small losses. This is only because of the Dancers with Vampirism and Ghostlyness, and the Fae and Archers with Initiative and Health. I have no idea if anyone can complete the game as the Necropolis, where every battle will halve your army

Here's another funny thing – three enemies appeared at once: 2 green elves (an archer and a mage) and a yellow necromancer. At the same time, a caravan appeared near the spawn point in the desert. The caravan lasted exactly one turn – the necromancer destroyed it, but I was still credited with completing the quest – or maybe it just disappeared, but it seems the necromancer took care of it. And you can play as Faidaen quite well; you can fight in the network for experience. The AI simply reacts to dodging; you need to dodge the trees and then revive them with fairies. Right now, the situation is roughly like this: https://c2n.me/45daNcT https://c2n.me/45daOZR https://c2n.me/45daUwi. And also, if you don't choose your sworn enemies in every battle, it will be tough; you need to adjust your strategy. There's also another point. Here are two cowards, a demon and a gnome, hiding from me near the spawn point – you can't touch them; they are protected there – but you can't leave them alone either; they will immediately run to your city in 2-3 turns. I only have one Ranger, I haven't set sail yet, and I haven't explored the underground of the second castle. P.S. Do the enemies ever end? They keep appearing in groups of three, even though I regularly destroy them https://c2n.me/45dea6N. It's interesting – 7 months, 2 weeks, and 4 days, I defeated another hero, and it said, "The yellow player has been defeated" – it seems they are finally running out, because before that, it didn't say anything. The green player has also been defeated by Faidaen.

It's interesting – 7 months, 2 weeks, and 4 days, I defeated another hero, and it wrote – the yellow player was defeated – apparently, they do run out, because before that, it didn't write anything. The green player also suffered a defeat from Faidaen...

The further you progress in time, the shorter the intervals between enemy appearances become. There are a total of 32 enemy heroes; you can, of course, hide and defeat them one by one, but due to the time delay, the final battle might be very difficult.

the final is quite easy, even compared to a battle with a random guest – usually, all guests are stronger. I defeated all the guests, and they stopped appearing; I cleared the entire map, only leaving the titans near the maxer's amulet untouched, as I didn't want to go back. They didn't give me level 34->35, so I only reached level 34 and then used trees to level up to 39, after which I completed the ghost quest.

This took over 9 months on a single hero.
And if you judge by the guests, each one had an average difficulty level (only low at the moment of arrival, before the guest levels up), and it was genuinely average; you can't use auto-battle, and you have to manually replay some battles several times.

the final battle is actually quite easy, even compared to a random guest encounter – usually, all guests are stronger. In my case, I defeated all the guests, and they stopped appearing. I cleared the entire map, only leaving the titans near the maxer's shrine untouched, as I didn't want to go back. They were the ones preventing me from reaching level 34->35, so I only reached level 34 and then used trees to level up to 39, after which I defeated the ghosts.

This took me over 9 months on a single hero.
And judging by the guests, each one had an average difficulty level (only low at the moment of arrival, before the guest levels up), and it was genuinely average; you can't rely on auto-battle, and you have to manually outplay some of them several times.

What armies did the guardians have in the final battle?

first ghost: 494 Death Knights, 658 Archliches, 661 Mummies, 3255 Ghosts each

second ghost: 640 Black Knights, 852 Archliches, 855 Mummies, 4225 Ghosts each

my army before the battles: 130 Blue Dragons, 403 Ancient Ents, 430 Battle Unicorns, 634 High Druids, 1957 Blue Archers, 1859 Blue Dancers, 3176 Blue Fairies

I read about the Passion Elf and decided to try playing as him. So, the main character is Ossir, and I chose the "hero" difficulty, aiming to complete the game in 91 days. It was a bit faster than when I played as the Castle faction, mainly because I didn't rush to the Elf mentor before the final battle. Without "regeneration," the Elf is already weak, but the computer tried its best, and the loot included "light" spells: no regeneration, resurrection, antimagic, or even stone skin. In the "darkness" section, Ossir didn't impress me, so I had to place a mage from the Dungeon faction to defend the castle. All the magic tomes were collected, and I didn't change the castle defender because, with around 40 spellcasting, the mage didn't care about the available spells. For the final battle, I could have sent the mage, but for the sake of the experiment, I sent Ossir.

It's unclear how 13ga, playing as elves without antimagic, could counter dark magic spells like Berserk and Dominate.

Added 42 minutes later
I tried to finish the game, and I finally reached the Guardians, but I got stuck. I haven't seen such overpowered characters in a long time. For example, one of them has a spell that's like a fireball, and it goes off at the beginning of the battle, spreading across the entire area, dealing massive damage, and destroying all equipment (what game is this from?). They all have insane initiative, and I'm not even talking about their stats and resilience. But the author thought that wasn't enough, so he took away all the mana before the battle, leaving the main character with nothing to do but complain about the unfairness of life. It's just one problem after another. There's a big difference between the crystals. Happy New Year to everyone (including the author).

I don't understand how, playing as Elves without Anti-Magic, he managed to win.

That's why I posted the replays, so everything would be clear.

I tried to finish the game, and I finally reached the Guardians, but I failed.

Are you sure you have a "clean" version of the map? Everything described sounds like mods are being used.

I decided to improve my result (complete it in 3 months) and failed – I got stuck on the Guardians. I tried everything (magic, darkness with Sandro's cloak, etc.), but it was all useless (because of the Guardians' high initiative and strong melee attacks). The problem was that I didn't have a bow and the necessary spells. Obviously, a bow, quiver, a magic hat (+2 luck and spirit), and spells like Haste and Anti-Magic are the key. I probably won't bother trying this map again. I think the author went overboard with the Guardians. Good luck to everyone.

Decided to try a speedrun of a map. I chose Necromancers, and with Lucretia as the hero, I managed to complete it in 76 days. While the opponents on the map weren't too challenging, I barely managed to defeat the final guardian. The creatures there have very high initiative, and it's difficult to gather enough units. I'd be interested to see if anyone can complete it in under 70 days.