Posts from Walkthroughs for custom maps.

-336 acquired "Hypnosis," which will be very useful in battle against Enova.
-337 Enova, guarding the passage to the purple tent, was defeated. It was a simple battle once I understood the author's idea, but before that, it seemed absolutely impossible to pass at that stage of the game.

-522 Tazar was defeated with the help of Sandro; only one Phoenix was needed :D. This battle is challenging for many players, but not in my case.

Did Enova break through using same-unit hypnosis on dendroids and binding enemy golds, while Tazar was handled via elementals summons and Armageddon? :D In my time, I used less sophisticated methods, but then I found the Chinese screenshots and was amazed by this and several other battles. Overall, the map is own super. The main feature, in my opinion, is that the author managed to pack the walkthrough on an XL-map with complex puzzle-battles at every stage of the game.

Lord Rings Map
I'll add my two cents, as I also completed the map very recently. I'd give it a 7 or 8 out of 10.
Despite not being the biggest fan of searching for solutions in overly contrived battles, I liked the map nonetheless.
The author truly assists the player who maintains tempo. I got the impression that killing the next enemy or guard is ALWAYS possible with what we have at the moment, provided we know the "key." Perhaps the only exception is Thorgrim, whose army is a medley of titans, archdevils, dragons, phoenixes, etc. Meaning you can't blind him, out-cast him, or hide in a safety point; nothing works because there's too much army and it's diverse (flyers, shooters, and archdevils). Otherwise, after killing the next hero or guard, you can immediately move to the next objective without waiting.

Army comments. Throughout the game, I definitely used Wizards and harpies. In a number of battles, I also took phoenixes and archangels. Frequent guests in the army were the mage and pegasus (to lower/raise magic costs), as well as manticoras and wyverns, and bone dragons once they became available due to the special abilities of the aforementioned creatures. Very rarely in battles with neutrals, I took archdevils and a stack of scorpicors (for example, while the main army was occupied on the other side of the map). I'm not counting one-time appearances of black dragons or azure dragons. The following armies WERE NEVER NEEDED: titans, bears, faerie dragons. Regarding casts, hypnosis was never (or once, I don't remember) needed, although the author surely provided for its use.
Resources and money can also be ignored. If you need cash at the start to slot in angels earlier and buy up immediately, then by week 3-4 everything is in abundance; in the second half of the map we have over 1.5 million and a ton of resources, but there's nothing to buy with them, nor anything needed.
Regarding tempo and comparing the walkthrough with Jules Winnfield
In the first week I didn't fall behind much, but I captured the second Castle + killed Sorsha only on 126. Jules Winnfield did well to take the castles by 121 and get growth from the second castle. The only question is how he split his army to hold defenses in two castles at once on 121?
Next, I didn't go underground, but scouted the second shore toward the Stronghold with one hero, while the second jumped to the Barbarian and killed him on 133 + took the Stronghold and via a small island (killing scorpicors with another hero), jumped to Sinka, and when she left her castle, I killed her in the field on 141.
Adjit was killed on 143, Lorelei on 145, and Orrin was only freed on 145. Already here I see that Jules Winnfield is ahead by almost a week, as he even freed Orrin on 134! Although we traversed the map roughly the same way.
Further in terms of timing, I started to overtake Jules Winnfield by about one or two weeks on average, but overall it's similar, though there are variations. For instance, I managed to arrive and kill Fiona earlier, while she was still in her castle! And I broke through the red dragon garrison (see screenshot) sooner, which took an incredibly long time given the number of retries.

I'll spill the beans: Sizon made several safety points where you can hide shooters or harpies and make use of them. He clearly marked them on the map as pits!!!! See the screenshot for where they are; all of them can be used to kill difficult AI. Examples below - battles with Malekith or Tamika.
The battle terrain is a real feature of this map. So feel free to look for the right spot for a battle with the AI, although there will be few such battles since up to 10 AI heroes move across the map.

Individual battles.

Difficulties in battles may arise if we play slowly and simply have too little army. You can't "accumulate" it in castles; growth is too small, and trigger heroes come our way who must be beaten right now—later it will be harder and worse. The faster and further you push, the quicker you get perks (+ 200 Wizards in the army, for example), or kill an enemy and take Armageddon's Blade from them. If you just hoard strength, killing the AI becomes impossible. Therefore, don't be afraid to let the AI out and kill them almost immediately after they leave. Ideally, the AI shouldn't learn any magic or buy anyone for their army; then it's much easier to kill them. Exception - the hero near the blue tent on the fire respawn. There, conversely, it is desirable that he learns various level 1-2 spells against his anti-magic, otherwise winning the battle is unrealistic.

As an option, you can fortify the shores and lure the AI into a water trap. I only performed this trick with Thorgrim
I also wanted to lure Tamika into the water, but she didn't "buy" it, so I had to kill her in the field, see screenshot :) a tricky battle with a safety cell. We use oil, two of our scorpicors blind two stacks of liches (relying on RNG), Wizards shoot at the third stack of liches (RNG again, if we want morale and a second shot), and archangels with haste crash in and kill the third stack; harpies stand on the safety island to reach everyone. The mage and pegasus simply fly closer to the AI so that he reaches them and casts stone skin rather than something else. If you don't want to rely on RNG, you can just place a scorpicor next to the liches and block their 1st shot.
In the second round, archangels also stand on the safety island, and Wizards + harpies kill the second stack of liches (you can use blessing if Wizards didn't cast in the first round, or prayer). If you get lucky with morale, you can hit twice. The AI liches are still immobile under manticora poison. And if they aren't immobile, our Wizards can shoot with frenzy and guaranteed kill 1 stack of liches.
In the third round, if the Wizards are still alive and haven't been reached, we shoot a third time, finish off all liches, and then on the island we have archangels + harpies; we drain the AI's mana, use quicksand on black knights, restore Wizards, place them on the safety island, and retreat with archangels. Tamika killed on 325.
Kilgor I also killed by attacking him in his castle; a long battle, low mana, but quite feasible.
Moandor was killed without much effort with 900 Wizards and almost 1900 harpies.
But the battles with Gunnar and Malekith are certainly brutal. If you tempoed a bit more, theoretically both could be killed before they even leave; it's possible—that's why the author gave us pit lords in such quantity. I was late by literally 3-4 days.
433 – an incredibly difficult battle in terms of RNG with Gunnar. See screenshot. We attack Gunnar in the field, max out speed, anti-blind, and attack stats. Using a safety cell (they are nearby) is impossible because Gunnar will then split his shooter stacks and the battle cannot be won. Absolute RNG in this fight. We must definitely age the bottom stack and block it immediately. And the top stack should either be aged or certainly immobilized by a scorpicor. Accordingly, Wizards should ideally cast either slow or blessing. We use frenzy and kill or almost kill the bottom shooter stack. If lucky, there will be morale and Wizards will shoot twice. Nagas kill the blocking dragons, but not all of them. In the second round, we again need to either age the second archer stack with dragons or, under frenzy, get same-unit morale with Wizards and shoot twice. Harpies must finish off or almost finish the shooters. Meanwhile !!!! the AI nagas must NOT get morale :) As you can understand, catching such RNG is extremely difficult; maybe one try out of 30. Moreover, in the second round if the nagas get morale, you have to retry. In the 3rd round, we immediately sacrifice Wizards to be killed by nagas so they catch up, while casting quicksand. Wizards are no longer needed in this fight for now and are very much in the way. For any cast of theirs, the AI likes to use dispel magic and we die immediately because 2 stacks of nagas will catch us on the battlefield in a heartbeat. Therefore, in the 3rd round, as I said, Wizards simply approach the nagas to be killed (you don't see that often in battle :), and we cast quicksand. The AI puts slow on us, prayer on himself, kills the Wizards and wants to catch us. So we cast sands over and over and fly away with harpies under slow; it's not hard. Under no circumstances do we cast anything other than restoration on ourselves—at best, healing. Then the AI will resurrect either nagas or shooters, or throw magic at us, but that doesn't matter; harpies are enough to endure all this. And only when the AI spends all his mana or has 4 mana left for dispel, then we restore 4-5 stacks and give any buff. The AI does dispel (mana then 0), kills our ones, and we again — slow. Here, if the AI catches morale, the try might be lost! Again, we do sands across the whole field, then restoration. That's kind of a fight!
437 – not a very difficult battle with Malekith if we use a safety point. See screenshot. With phoenixes, we block his liches (don't attack), and with bone dragons, we try to age the magogs. If it works, Wizards immediately teleport to the safety point where no one can catch us and kill the magog. If they don't age, we give Wizards frenzy and still kill the gogs, then in the 2nd round we teleport to the safety point.
515 is also a tough battle with Tazar, again due to RNG. See screenshots of rounds 1 and 2. We need to successfully place phoenixes near faeries so that rusty dragons fly there. Azure dragons reveal our ballista and archangels. And here the RNG begins. We need:
1) our phoenixes not to be frightened and fly where needed,
2) his rusties not to be frightened and burn our phoenixes (then in the 2nd round we can use the rusty burn on his faeries),
3) ideally for his faeries to be frightened and cast nothing,
4) our Wizards not to be frightened and shoot; ideally — get morale and shoot twice at the faeries.
5) in the second and subsequent rounds, our phoenixes not to be frightened and perform the rusty burn on the faeries.
6) in the 2nd and later rounds, ideally for the faeries to be frightened again, while our Wizards shoot at them with frenzy; ideally — twice with morale.
If everything works out, the faeries are killed and Tazar cannot make a clone of them. If a few are left, it's important that they don't randomly cast meteor strike on us (this kills azure dragons), or kill Wizards with an arrow, ice bolt, or fireball.
In short, also a tedious RNG battle, but then due to forcefield you can easily drain all of Tazar's mana and shoot him down later.

526 – final battle, see screenshot for the army I used to win. I assume it's possible to somehow place a 1-hex unit (Sizon doesn't suggest swapping 30 archangels for 30 angels for nothing!) next to cyclops so that the AI azure dragons burn him themselves, but I didn't experiment and did it my way. In the battle, you need to age and block the cyclops, then kill them in the 2nd round with frenzy and morale. In the 3rd round, harpies and our azures hide behind the forcefield, and a long battle of attrition for the AI's mana and killing his azure dragons ensues. We lost all Wizards in the battle, but it's already the finale, and we don't need them anymore!

A worthwhile map, although quite difficult; clearly above average level.

Overall, the playthroughs were quite similar, even the timings were almost the same. I lost about 5 days luring Malekith and had a few other significant setbacks. In principle, I could have completed it in under 5 months if I had planned the logistics better, but I still consider the result to be quite good. P.S. If needed, I can provide daily save files.

Thank you for the walkthrough review! It was interesting to see other people's results. In the middle of the map, behind the pillars where the Wizards are, you can see that the author expects the player to be there on day 236! Although I arrived there, not really taking it easy, on day 322, i.e., at least 2.5 weeks later!

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-516 Necromancers killed with 11k Liches and 450 Crystal Dragons. The battle was more difficult than against his twin brother, whom I killed earlier. He was killed in a way that was clearly not intended by the game designers.

Could you specify which one?

The author intended to use quicksand again, but since the crystals are faster than the Wizards, the tactic from the previous battle didn't work. A modernization of the battle was needed. Instead of figuring out how to implement it, I simply used Wizards + Phoenixes. In the first round, I blocked the Liches and put the Wizards under Fire Field. In the second round, I summoned a clone. The damage from the Wizards was enough to defeat the Liches in a few rounds until all the Phoenixes died. Then came the quicksand, resurrection of the Phoenixes, and finishing off the crystals. As for artifacts, I had to equip the Lightning Amulet and the Medal (I was using Forgetfulness). It's a rather banal tactic, but it worked.

A small note regarding the HD mod. Perhaps this is common knowledge, but today I encountered a situation where using HD changes the gameplay, even without HD+. In the original game, the computer never attacks my town, but with HD, it always does; this was tested many times. Of course, everyone has their own opinion, but changing the gameplay (whether for the better or worse, I cannot judge) in a mod that is positioned as "purely for convenience" is unacceptable.

Hello everyone. I haven't visited the forum in a while. I don't have much to share; I'm stuck on one map (as always). The game freezes when one of the opponents takes their turn, and I really want to finish it. I'll write more details in the thread later this evening; maybe someone has already played this map.