Posts from Walkthroughs for custom maps.

You can swim from the Dungeon to 134.92.1.

I didn't notice this path when I was looking at the map in the editor.

But the question is not about that, but about where the items that unlock access to the Key Zone come from.

I agree. The items are located in a very unusual place, but this is what sets the map apart from other scenarios that I have played. Even in the map "A Long Way," there was nothing like this.

Something similar exists in the map "Arlok," if I remember correctly.

Map Name: Audaciousness
Author: Grigor Minchev
Link: http://en.heroesportal.net/maps/view/533 or on https://www.maps4heroes.com/ it's also available

Anyone familiar with the Bulgarian mapmaker Grigor Minchev knows this author's style. Usually, the maps are not simple; you have to push yourself to win.
About 2 years ago, I tried to complete the Audaciousness map; I explored it in detail but later abandoned it because I saw a ban by the author on Wisdom and Earth skills in the editor, plus a difficult start with guards consisting of own same-faction dragons, without money or an army.
Now I decided to try again.
Not his best work; I give the map a 5-6 out of 10, although the start deserves attention.
I assume it was designed for an alliance walkthrough, i.e., 2 people against computers. The map is a mirror; the top and bottom of the map are identical in terms of objects, castles, etc. Therefore, reaching the "closed-off" computer at the end of the map—who got stuck in early development, didn't take Dragon Utopia, and failed to break through some creatures (while we had already cleared the top and bottom of the map)—is a sad sight.

Choosing who and what to play
We can start playing for the Rampart village with Grindan and get Enova at the end with 20 gold dragons. Or choose any castle starting with Müllich and get a hero with the Logistics skill and 20 archdevils at the end.
Obviously, it is definitely better to take Müllich; +2 creature speed is power. After learning Armageddon, one ifrit can kill up to 7 own same-faction dragons—the initial guards at the respawn of some objects. There is no use in Grindan; he lacks Earth initially. Plus, the bonus of 20 archdevils can be combined with Inferno castles, but gold dragons cannot; they only get in the way.
Regarding the choice of starting castle, I dismissed Tower, Flask, and other castles. I decided not to take the human Castle because archangels wouldn't make a difference—there are too few of them, and they wouldn't be useful anywhere on the map later. Dungeon is questionable: there are no mana multipliers on the map, nor the ability to buy artifacts. As a result of the struggle between Inferno (and 85% of the castles on the map are indeed Inferno!), I ultimately took Rampart. Simply because at the start of the map, the army from Pandora's box is statically given as Rampart, which will combine the starting army + the army from Pandora's box. A huge plus will also be the 10% bonus from the treasury. In literally a couple of weeks in the 2nd month, I accumulated up to 1 million money; then there was enough money for creatures.
Therefore, I took Rampart and played with Müllich, maining him. Although in tests I tried maining both Mephala and Elleshar—it can be done, but there is no point: it's hard to break through the giants at the initial respawn, and their abilities aren't particularly needed; so Müllich is the best option.

Conditionally, the map can be divided into 3 stages:
1) gearing up at the initial respawn
2) capturing all territory of your overworld / underworld
3) breaking through to the other side of the map and finishing off the opponent.

1. Initial respawn
The most interesting part of the game. Essentially, one could make an S or M map in the form of an initial respawn for some walkthrough duration; that would be a better idea.
Müllich starts with negative experience -23600! As battles are fought, his experience is added, but skills are not granted. Also, you cannot see his skill tree until you gain enough experience.
As an initial bonus, I took crystals and on the very 1st day opened a quest pillar, beat wyverns, and then took Pandora's box, for which I was given a Rampart army that combined with the starting dwarves + given 3 ifrits, flies, and 7 wyverns; now we have a start.
Then I go straight north, where I need to open the pillar by day 117. I took it on 115 and immediately went down to the crystal mine, bought the second hero Elleshar for acceleration, help in gathering resources, and possible gearing up.
122 – took wood mines, crystal mine; 127 – wood and stone mines.
From around the 2nd week, Müllich travels with more than a hundred centaurs, wyverns, and several ifrits; all guards are broken through almost without losses.
On the 3rd week, we clear clues with Müllich and collect a stack of wyverns. Müllich enters positive experience, experts Fire, raises stats; from quests, we get artifacts for Knowledge and own same-faction spells.
And on 146, I break through the giants—the first difficult battle. You need to block titans with flies and place the fire wall correctly so that the titans burn. In the second round, we slow the main stack of 116 giants, lose some units, and wyverns kill all small stacks. Then we place the fire wall as shown in the picture, or on the right, and the giants are burned back and forth for 330 damage. We finish off the remaining with wyverns. An interesting battle, although not difficult.
As a reward, we get Wisdom and Earth for Müllich. He is the only hero we have who knows Earth.
After that, with ifrits at speed 15, we burn own same-faction dragons with Armageddon, take Dragon Utopia of 20 archdevils, leave the respawn, and on 145, we take the first Inferno castle.
Why I described everything so detailed: the author very precisely calculated the amount of experience for a hero with negative experience, resources are very precisely calculated, and for everything to go like clockwork, you need to calculate very well and try to make sure there is enough for everything: purchases, quests.
I really liked the start of the map, especially the task of taking two Pandoras—one gives resources, the second takes them away + takes mana. You can save a lot of money if you plan everything correctly and spend on the quest pillar. In general, the start is 9-10 out of 10, great.

2. Capturing the entire overworld.
On the 2nd week, the computer hasn't geared up yet, and if you end the day behind obstacles, its first 5-7 castles can be captured with all their growth.
From 145 (capture of the 1st Inferno) to 211 inclusive—i.e., in 4 days via fast roads—another 5 Inferno castles and 2 swamps were captured, and the pink player was killed; all this was done without the trick of dismissing / hiring heroes.
Essentially, such a walkthrough is like an online game where you capture the opponent's castles in a chain. In just 1 week, by 217, ALL castles on our half of the map were captured, and purchased and upgraded wyverns with accelerators (Dessa, Gunnar, Kir) went northwest to clear Dragon Utopia and collect money.
The computers offered no resistance at all; their stats are initial. Therefore, this part of the walkthrough has no interest.
Except for trips by the main hero to tents at the ends of the map—some kind of entertainment. On 322, to open the black tent, you need to fight Alamar with wild magic stats, who knows Chain Lightning, Fireball, and Resurrection. Alamar has 700 mana; we have only 290, so hiding archdevils behind a forcefield under antimagic won't work. I had to beat him on morale, fire Armageddon, place a forcefield on the dead (so he wouldn't raise forces), until finally Alamar fled, having killed 29 archdevils out of 152. It is probably impossible to win honestly in battle; you need to make him flee. Or as an option, release the hero and open the tent later, plus he might learn something more "gentle" than a Fireball on half a stack.
And the stage ends on 326 by breaking through neutrals in a box on dead land. We use slow and lose single units + a couple of magogs with archdevils.

3. Expansion to the other half of the map
The easiest part. Computers with growth went northwest for Dragon Utopia; castles surrender almost without a fight. Everything is also captured—managed to take everything from 327 to about 344. Then red Enova died in a week without castles on 411. So, the map was completed in 3 months.

I won't criticize it too much, but it looks very much like Minchev made it "for fun" rather than as usual. I.e., with the possibility to play without stress in an alliance, although completing the first three weeks is difficult for an unprepared person. Here is a comment under the map on heroeportal:
"Played with a friend. For convenience, I combined red and blue into an alliance. But due to 0 resources, we couldn't even leave the start locations. Is this map impossible or are we such noobs?" :D

In short, an extremely interesting start for a map is played out in 1 month, your half of the map is captured in blitz mode in 1.5 months, and the second half in 2 weeks. Rating – 5-6 points. Almost no difficult battles, heroes do not use their specializations; memorable battles can be counted on one hand.

Everyone who is familiar with the Bulgarian mapmaker Grigor Minchev knows this author's style.

I played his maps back in my early childhood) It's funny how he copied parts of one map to another, while changing the meaning.

Not his best work, I give this map a 5-6 out of 10, though the HotA start is worth noting..

And which one is the best? I'd love to see a hit parade of maps)

I played his maps back in my childhood. It's funny how he copied parts of one map and pasted them into another, while changing the meaning.

And which one is the best? I'd like to see a hit parade of maps.

Not enough maps have been played for a hit parade.
Back in the day, I started with Abelia, and it's the one I remember the most. I also remember a simple map where you had to switch from humans to necromancers. There was also a bug where you could transfer the Titan's Gladius to zero-level heroes, and Septenia had 99 defense, I think. I sent the saves to Minchev by email after that.
I started 3-4 more maps, but didn't finish them. His maps require patience: doing great things with small armies, and I don't always have the patience for that.

Not his best work, I give the map a 5-6 out of 10, though the HotA start is worth noting.

I also took a look at the map in the editor yesterday and didn't understand what you found so complex back then :D

It was two years ago, or rather, I thought the initial skill level seemed difficult, and I didn't look any further.

I finally found the time and finished Jedy strikes back. I plan to write a report on it soon, although there have already been 2 walkthroughs for this map, I will still write about my vision of the playthrough, which is generally similar to the walkthrough by kolotoka.

I propose a small interactive activity. I'm interested in the opinions of players who regularly play custom maps and have seen many. Which maps or campaigns would you recommend playing? At least 5-10 maps.

I propose a small interactive activity. I'm interested in the opinions of players who regularly play custom maps and have seen many. Which maps or campaigns would you recommend playing? At least 5-10 maps.

Play for whom? Recommendations will be different for a beginner, an experienced player, or a hardcore player. Plus, it also depends on personal preferences. For example, I don't like completely static maps and try to avoid them, while some people only play that kind. Some people like puzzle maps and various brain teasers, while others don't. And so on.

Who should play it?

Well, for example, me. I have more free time now, so I might try playing something.

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These are all the maps I've played myself and consider to be good ones. Separately, I also have a list of "maps that caught my eye." As a bonus, here is an interesting water map from that list.

Map: 生死百年第三版 (Century of Life and Death, 3rd Edition)
Author: Woxin
Walkthrough Review

Woxin is one of my most respected mapmakers; I've played most of his maps available online. I can say that the author approaches maps responsibly and with quality; I have almost no complaints or same-//shortcomings. All maps are dynamic, offering freedom of movement, constant "contact" with AI, and the need to plan management for both your own and the AI's movements. I definitely recommend them to all lovers of high-quality maps.
Therefore, it was a great pleasure to stumble upon a misplaced map that I hadn't completed yet. And I wasn't mistaken. I can give this map a 9-10 out of 10; I liked everything or almost everything, which is why I am doing a full review of it.
Attached are 3 versions of this map. 1 - normal, 2 - middle, 3 - BT (a very difficult version). Although the author writes that it's not exactly BT, it is still very hard. It's rare, but there is a 1-page text file for this map (also attached) where the author addresses the players. Those interested can put the text file into Google Translate.
Confirmation of the map's quality is the fact that, according to the author, it was tested on Chinese forums!
I chose the BT version of the map, the harder one.
I will try to describe the first few weeks in great detail, as tempo is important and some might be interested in comparing their walkthrough with mine. Plus, I replayed the first month several times because I either "under-collected" my army, went the wrong way, or had bad random luck with AI moves. Perhaps this review will save time.
The idea for the walkthrough is maximum tempo in the first 2 months: arrive at the AI's location as early as possible and take as many of its castles as you can so that it doesn't accumulate strength or upgrade forces in forts. Therefore, you need to hurry very much; the faster you are, the fewer losses in battles and the larger our army.
It is also interesting that as we progress, our armies change—meaning at first there is one army, then as we move forward, it changes "on the fly," so to speak.
Also extremely important on this map will be catching enemies either in a castle or in the field, but ensuring they don't escape at the end of the 1st month or beginning of the second, so that we can get their artifacts and not lose armies, as they love to cast strike magic on our stacks while escaping.
Ideally: whoever you run into, kill them immediately.

Start 111 - 117
As for choosing opponents, it's better to choose castles like: Titans, Inferno, human Castle. Other forces are of little use in the game. Although this is not strictly critical. As a starting bonus, I usually take an artifact, but here I took money to immediately buy some forces. Plus, at the start, I tried to get any hero from Rampart to have a stack of Wood Elves (I couldn't generate two at once). In the thread, someone shared the idea that it would be good to take an artilleryman like Gurnisson as a second hero and immediately raise his level for micro-battles, but I didn't get around to that idea. In general, the choice is yours.
At the start, as often happens, we have an unbuilt castle (spoiler—which can remain unbuilt until the end of the game, except perhaps for the treasury in the late game) and no army. You must immediately kill Alagar on day 1 near the castle; for this, we buy a starting army (definitely 2 or 3 available Wood Elves—for now, they are our "strike stack"), losing a couple of guys in battle (see screenshot), as Alagar will cast a few ice spells. On the same day, we take the sawmill and reach the prison with Enova on the last move, who immediately heads north to the Wood Elf external dwelling, takes it, and buys three more (now there are 5).
On the 2nd day, we free Mephala, who immediately takes a dwarf mine for money and experience. In principle, you can generate an average dwarf mine so that you can take it with existing forces and have enough money (a minimum one likely won't suffice).
In the following days, we buy out a hero in the castle with a starting army; Kir travels east to the respawn for money and elf growth.
By the end of the week, we do a "lap of honor" with heroes around the starting respawn, take unicorn external dwellings (and oh, I had to struggle with morale so as not to lose a single Wood Elf while taking them!) and buy them out. As for heroes, we try to immediately buy out logisticians—Gunnar and Dessa—as well as heroes with assets (elementalists). By the end of the week, Mephala should be standing in the north to break through the phoenixes, and the others—to visit various mills and deliver the army.
I have 6 heroes, 24 elves, 4 unicorns, 6 dendroids, 3 sentinel dendroids.

Upgrades and Skills
Not knowing what I would need later, I struggled for a long time with what to choose. But the author practically suggested it himself: along my entire route are huts with skills. So here is the advice: just take all the skills in the witch's huts along your path of movement; everything will be useful. Wisdom, attack, and fire are given immediately and should be taken right away. As starting skills, Mephala (who is our main for the whole game) has defense and pathfinding. The remaining 3 skills are obvious: water, logistics, earth. Theoretically, you could take intelligence instead of fire or attack, but in my opinion, what I wrote is better; mana can be doubled later, as there are places to do so. However, attack in the first 6 weeks is indispensable when you need to fight wall-to-wall, almost without magic.
For secondary heroes: give 2-3 of them air (will be needed for tricks at the end), but otherwise everyone should take logistics + pathfinding.
In general, it's not worth investing heavily in leveling up secondary heroes (except logisticians, of course), because as you kill enemy enemies, some well-leveled ones can be bought out.

121 – 127
Next, I thought about where to go. There were 2 options—stay at the respawn and then break through the gold dragons in the east, but that would take a long time since there are 5 of them and our army is weak.
It seemed more correct to me to break through the phoenixes in the north, visit the fort and upgrade troops, then kill the dragons and descend into the underground.
So, battle with phoenixes on 123—see screenshot, papist relief, Gunnar carries it with tactics (not Mephala). I don't remember the exact placement, but roughly like that.
Then Mephala, with 8 upgraded unicorns and 14 upgraded Wood Elves, losing a few guys, breaks into the underground.
And here it is critically important to do 2 things by 127: take the red dragon external dwelling, and in the dungeon village, build a portal and get another red dragon.

131 – 137
Again, it's important to buy a 3rd dragon from the external dwelling and a 4th from the portal, as a very difficult battle with angels awaits us (see screenshot), and without dragons, we won't handle it. I replayed this battle many times because of many "randoms": you need the angels not to have morale, plus ideally trigger blindness from unicorns—double is ideal. Some fodder is lost—dwarves, minotaurs, and 1 pegasus. The rest of the army—dragons, grands, Wood Elves, and unicorns—no losses. Immediately after this, Mephala rushes east in the underground, while all others form a chain, upgrade 4 red dragons to black ones, and this is now our main force.
We go to the end of the underground, where on 134 we free Müllich and take a boat with Mephala. This is also where the first contact occurs with Vistan the swamp-dweller, but he runs away from us, unwilling to fight. We keep Kir close to Mephala because there are no taverns ahead; she cannot be lost, and Kir will have to open the quest post for us.
In principle, this is where the "linear" walkthrough ends. Further, there are at least 3-4 routes (I tried all options by experience!):
- you can take the boat back to your starting respawn, break through the gold dragons there and take growth from Rampart,
- you can sail straight to the human Castle in the northwest to take it,
- you can land near the anti-magic garrison and take Rampart later,
- you can sail toward the swamp-dweller a bit further east.
Plus, there is VERY big random with AI moves: he can go in different directions, often differently, and this changes everything—both in terms of combat and logistics, and that our heroes cannot be lost until we reach a tavern, etc.
I chose the last option with the swamp-dweller. On 137, we land on his lands and take the swamp castle, accordingly getting growth for the new week. I liked this option best because there was an opportunity to capture 3 angels from "cans" slightly above the swamp-dweller's castle. In literally 1 week or even a couple of days, they would be taken by enemies. And 3 archangels in the army are both a strike stack and restoration, which we don't have yet!
Moreover, there is no point in rushing to the human Castle; archangels are built there, but they will only appear on 147.

141 – 147
Next, total random begins on the map and you can decide for yourself: how, where, in what sequence to go and which tasks to solve. The AI decides similarly, so you often have to save/load.
I chose the following: bought 2 hydras, took a "can" of 3, upgraded all that, and went west. Army and leveling on 143 see screenshot; picked up cows along the way.
On 147, I freed Catherine from prison, adding another 4 archangels to the army.
Here, the first blunder in the walkthrough was noticed (forgot to visit the "attack" hut in the underground!!!), and a second "blunder" occurred. In the human Castle on day 28, there is an event—the construction of archangels. Now, I captured this castle earlier, and for some reason, the archangels weren't built; the script didn't trigger! As a result, until the end of the map, I received no growth of archangels from this castle! Which is very bad, of course. Later I tried rolling back saves (honestly, 15-20 times) and replaying the week from 143 to 217; the archangels were built, but everything was VERY UNFORTUNATE—terrible in terms of killing enemy heroes and their routes. Therefore, I decided that killing enemies (more on this below) without losses, getting their artifacts, and their correct movement is more important now than growth "later"; I decided to continue without the archangel growth in castle 30-114-0. In general, it's a big mistake, but I decided to play like this.
While there are no enemies; all the losers have scattered north.

211 – 227
After visiting the stable in the castle on 211, Mephala and Kir immediately go west, where on 213 we cleverly position ourselves before neutrals (see screenshot), so that on 215 we can reach and take the swamp with all growth: 8 chaos hydras (+1 from external dwelling) and 23 cows (we likely won't be able to kill azure ones otherwise in the future).
On 216, we free Ivor with 55 snipers. And further—why I didn't replay and stayed without archangels—on day 217, I killed 4 enemy heroes (Luna, Roland, Clancy, Ignat), almost without losses, and none of them could escape, and I got 2 artifacts; this was very difficult to achieve! That is, if at the beginning of day 217 Mephala's stats were 8955 and only 1 artifact for knowledge, then on 221 it was 13-13-5-5. Plus no losses!
On 221, we take Flax with growth; there is a tavern there, and you can re-buy the well-leveled enemy Ignat (7-6-6-10 stats, after all!).
Here and beyond—it's important to catch and kill the AI so that he doesn't escape with artifacts. On 222, we put Mephala in a position and in a battle very difficult due to random, we kill the Dragon (see screenshot), almost without losses and getting all artifacts. This was very hard! Of course, my cows eat the azures, but Dragon is a terrible mage and can hit our snipers very hard with magic. In extreme cases, he casts magic and runs away. Therefore, it's very difficult to catch him, but I succeeded! Obtained artifacts: breastplate +4 attack and defense, ring +1 attack and defense, badge of courage, and several other artifacts!
We kill a couple more losers, take the spell power artifact, and on 224 we lure in Charna, another stronger opponent; it was also very hard to kill her so that she didn't escape (scorpidons helping with stun), see screenshot. Got a bunch of other artifacts, including the titan thunder helmet; now there is mana.
Bought out enemy Sylvia, Clancy, and others who could be bought.
On 226, Gunnar takes the second flax and kills the last losers on this respawn, and Mephala gets in a boat to sail north. There's no point staying at this respawn any longer; you need to go north—to learn magic.

231 – 237
232—another difficult fight where you have to "catch" Kir; succeeded, got the same-hat from AOTD.
Kir stayed in the sanctuary near the flaxes and the fortress with phoenixes and other small troops to take castles and constantly distract/aggro the AI.
And Mephala and the remaining logisticians go around the north, take external dwellings, mines, visit captured towers. In the first, we learn clone; now 7 archangels can restore even better. In the second tower—water walking. In the third—restoration.
Through manipulation, I managed to send the losers slightly ahead (Edric sailed with 1 fairy on a ship), while logisticians went on foot. On 243, Edric blocked the narrow path to the 3rd Cloudspear tower; they thought 1 fairy wouldn't take the castle and weren't stingy. My chain passed through and I captured the tower with growth of TEN titans. Strike stacks change again :) Later I did the same trick further south and got 10 unbought archangels in a castle. On narrow passages, you can also lure strong enemies onto your losers. Take note!
By 247, I traveled all over the north, learned all magic, and now you can choose where to go—and there are again several directions.

311 – 347
Next, the player can choose:
- return through the north to the flax castles and finish off the AI,
- try to break through Phoenixes in the north and descend to the underground,
- go straight southwest; there are many options.
On 314, I got the Cursed Armor (collected all artifacts from killed losers) and the game became easier: traveled around the western respawn, finished off heroes with artifacts, captured castles, etc.
On 327, I killed Saurug and received the legion statue.
On 337, Mutare Drake was killed and tea died.
Until the end of the third month, I accumulate strength, expand/clear territory, take stats.

411 – 447
The army is divided: archangels and titans travel with Mephala; devils, fairy dragons, swamp army—with logisticians. The third army of phoenixes and black dragons + ifrits burns the AI's losers with Armageddon.
421—yellow killed.
Soon pink heroes emerge from one-way paths: Galtran with legions etc. After tricks and killing Galtran, I managed to get the cloak of the undead king from him (practically cheating!). After ramping up the necromancer, you can mow down tens of thousands of liches on the map. By 447 there were 800. Without really using the liches, I first hid them far away and then sold them entirely. I continued the game with a normal army, as finishing the game with liches would have lost all interest.
By 447, I cleared almost all of the map's overworld. Losers periodically jump from teleports, but they are quickly caught. Control has been obtained over the entire overworld.

511 – 836
In general, the clearing stage can be done earlier, depending on how it goes for you.
To control the map as early as possible, you need to get town portal. This can only be done in the seer's hut in several places by reaching level 38 or 42. It's not hard to get Mephala to such a level; for this, after breaking through phoenixes in the north of the map, you can descend into the underground and break through 2411 fairy dragons. Theoretically, this can be done by Mephala with a mana reserve and sufficient numbers of archdevils or archangels and/or shooting stacks. Then you can also break through rusty dragons using archdevils and shooters with a tent.
After obtaining town portal and relearning it, map control becomes very easy. I did it slightly differently and took the long way—through the bottom of the underground via the waterway, so the game dragged on since I lost about a month and a half on this.
523—green killed.
621—obtained town portal.
625—Octvia was killed and bracers were obtained (oh how they were missed at the start of the game!).

In the underground you need to:
- break through neutral troops: azure legions are killed by vampires, I think even 500-600 are enough; fairy ones—killed by archdevils,
- visit all libraries,
- collect angel external dwellings, bears etc.,
- accumulate an army of dragons,
- visit all available tents.
What I couldn't do was get the speed boots and admiral's hat. Breaking through 4 thousand rusty ones is impossible. Even gathering 800-900 vampires and taking a cell where only 1 stack can hit us, the first stack of rusty dragons lowers our defense to 0, and the second stack kills in 1 hit. So I couldn't take that—perhaps the only object on the map.
There are no particular difficulties at this stage, although I will post some battle screenshots anyway.
On 643, you need to break through a garrison with impressive guards and get goodies in the form of artifacts, magic, etc.
Killed bosses:
721—Shiva + red tent.
723—Tazar, brown tent
724—Jeditt, a tedious battle. We have a great advantage in attack, but the enemy has impressive stacks and is a restoration specialist. I couldn't find the key to him for a long time until finally I pushed archangel and azure stacks "into the corners," applied all buffs + fire shield. Archangels made clones and gradually killed azures and sulfurs. I cast hypnosis on some mini-stack (blindness doesn't work) and restored. Almost all mana was spent. A memorable fight. Killing him gives a great bonus in the form of giants and titans.
732—Moner, not a very difficult battle; our army is sufficient by now.
Right there, without leaving the same spot, we learn dimensional gates and kill the previously unreachable brown (747) and pink (814).
817—dug up the grail and placed it in the castle for + morale to all troops. It cannot be placed in flax.
Then we do a series of tricks on the last boss; his army is just too unkillable. His gold dragons and phoenixes burn through archangels first, then titans, and finally the golds themselves. I was able to fight with the remaining army, see screenshot.
Final battle. Put artifacts on Angel Alliance and speed. While the enemy killed my phoenixes and azures, I cast prayer, earth protection etc. on devils, whom I hid behind a forcefield. Gave the AI slow. Then Nimus spent all mana restoring phoenixes, which were being killed by an archdevil. Then lowered defense with a destruction beam and gradually finished off the enemy. Not enough mana to restore all azures, but that's not scary, because after killing Nimus, I took the last purple castle 1 cell away and the game ended on 836.

Map: 生死百年第三版 (A Century of Life and Death, 3rd edition)
Author: Woxin
Walkthrough Overview

more screenshots

I propose a small interactive activity. I'm interested in the opinions of players who regularly play custom maps and have seen many. Which maps or campaigns would you recommend playing? At least 5-10 maps.

I've made a few reviews of maps by the author Woxin - you can choose almost any. Enemy at the gates is good, as are the others.
Definitely great maps: 6424, Counterattack of the Jedi, Brave without Fear, Dark Man, Brave People, Jennifer's Dream Journey (CHI)
It's hard for me to make a rating, but I can definitely remember the mentioned maps.
I've also played Wayfarer, Xiedu, and Ira the Mage, but these are old classics.

I suggest a little interactive activity) I'm interested in the opinions of players who constantly complete custom maps and have seen a lot. Which maps or campaigns would you recommend completing? At least 5-10 maps.

Xiedu,The lord of rings,ira the mage,where the beauty,veangence is mine,Jedy strikes back,Field of Wonders (woxina's map). Except for xiedu, I have completed all of those listed. This is my top list at the moment.

Added after 8 hours 22 minutes
Map Jedy strikes back (Iron man edition)

General Impression I remember once reading a walkthrough review of this map by kolotok and thinking to myself: nooo, I'll never play such same hardcore stuff)). Time flows and everything changes; the time has come for this most interesting map. Of all the maps I've completed, which have already reached a quite decent number (about 15 Chinese RPG maps alone), this one took the most real-time, but it was absolutely worth it. The map is very demanding regarding tempo; hesitation on it is akin to death, so riding your "horse" in a relaxed manner is definitely not for this scenario. But besides that, I should note the huge number of difficult, exhausting, and diverse battles, which is actually what attracted me most.
Walkthrough Tips - Speedrun as much as possible, otherwise there's a high probability you won't complete the map. - Archmages and pegasi are important in almost every battle; also, imps are often needed for mana cycling—besides archdevils, these are the most critical units in the game, don't forget them.
- Since our main stack throughout the game is archdevils, don't forget about the terrain; it can often save you in difficult battles.
- Hypnosis, which is useless on most well-known maps, has significant importance here, as almost all enemies have lenses of inner vision or a medallion. Don't forget to use it by creating screens for your troops.
- Stat boosters are placed specifically in the most inconvenient way, so whenever possible, try to take stats that are more or less on your way; either ignore the others or postpone visiting them until later.
Pros As I wrote—a huge number of difficult and interesting battles. Playing without Intelligence in skills, late acquisition of Clone and Town Portal forced me to rack my brain during the walkthrough, but also provided great aesthetic pleasure from the decisions made—a kind of masochism). Gameplay via archdevils, no Arch+Clone for you, shooters for FF (hello to Paragon lovers).
Cons The possibility of getting free legions of Azure and Faerie dragons in month 2, as well as КВ, should be considered definite negatives of this map. I don't understand the author's logic; apparently, it's some kind of mockery of players. I decided not to take them and absolutely didn't regret it, because the whole essence of the walkthrough would have been lost for me. The possibility of freeing Boragus and Gretchen with a berserker, Azure dragons, and Rust Dragons I would categorize as conditional negatives compared to Marlo, because they must be freed quite early, and the enemy doesn't sleep and wants to do it themselves; but the difficulty also lies in the fact that before the prisons there is an event with very powerful guards at the start of month 3, which is practically impossible to break through even with Kreg due to a simple lack of mana. So I certainly wouldn't call this "free stuff."
About my walkthrough Out of 4 heroes to choose from, I took Kreg, simply because I got tired of Orrin appearing in almost every Chinese map; Tazar, contrary to the logic of most Chinese maps, won't win here, and Malekith will suffer for most of the map, although in the late game he is the most preferred option of all (he is the only one with Intelligence). For the starting artifact, I rolled an artifact for + morale, as well as "Quicksand" and "Anti-Magic" spells dropping in the Stronghold Mages Guild at 118-103-0; according to my plan, this was mandatory. With that, the selection of the starting save was finished, and I didn't need the "dancing with a tambourine" that kolotok had. But the funniest thing is that you can manage without any of this if you follow the path indicated in Marlo's walkthrough and don't fight Kirry. I wanted to go this way myself, but couldn't find a way to trick Kirry and run away from her after the castle at 54-52-0. For Kreg's skills: Logistics, Pathfinding, Water, Earth, Wisdom, Offense (mandatory skills); in the last 2 slots I took Tactics (came in handy many times) and Fire (expert Frenzy and Sacrifice helped out quite a few times). I passed on Leadership because there are many objects for increasing morale and luck on the map; I didn't take Archery either, as other skills were even less preferable. For Ione, I took Air (helped a lot in the battle against Gurnisson and breaking through event thieves).
Tasks at the start of the map: free the support as quickly as possible, capture the Necropolis, begin its development to get vampires and GM3, and also break through Gurnisson. Gurnisson was killed on day 115-116 by Ione in the field—a very random and nasty battle where I had to fish for critical morale; it took a lot of time and nerves, but it was worth it because this opens passages to the 6 devils and mana events that are critically necessary.
121 - breaking through event 1900 thieves by Ione with 1 Faerie dragon).
127 - entering a one-way portal and capturing the vital Stronghold at 108-103-0
132 - breaking through Crellion and Kirry. Kirry's 1000 hellspawn were broken by 10 vampires and ghosts. One of my longest battles; even with turbo animation from sod_sp it took a huge amount of time—I dread to imagine how long this would last on pure SoD without the HD mod and sod_sp (hello Nasos).
136 - capturing Inferno at 72-71-0, from which we go through gates into the underground for exploration and resource gathering.
From 137 begins a lull phase when we need to free our resource heroes as quickly as possible, get "Water Walking", "Restoration", "Sink Ship" spells with Kreg, a blindness scroll and handcuffs for breaking Fury, as well as capture external dwellings with devils and Inferno castles, since our main stack throughout the game is archdevils, as well as collecting quest gold and freeing Calid with literacy. We are given slightly more than a month to build up, and we need to do very much in this time, otherwise the first enemies will simply wipe us out. Among the difficult moments at this stage, I should note breaking through the Inferno guards at point 143-0 (barely made it on mana, saved by expert Sacrifice, otherwise I would have lost a certain number of archdevils, which are worth their weight in gold for us), and a large number of reloads to find the correct logistics for heroes. The Grail dug up at the start of month 2 was placed in Inferno, as the devil growth gave the maximum impact compared to other castles.
On day 315 enemies visit the green tent, and on 322 a mass invasion of our lands begins via one-way exits, so it is critically important to reach Yog through a series of heroes on the sandy peninsula—a quest hero whose killing grants "Town Portal". If you don't manage to kill him by 315, he leaves through the green guardian and is reinforced by titans from a hero in the neighboring zone, which is what Marlo encountered during his walkthrough. The battle immediately becomes much harder because there's simply nothing to control the titans with. Fortunately, I managed to kill him on 314 before the troops joined. Also an important point at this stage is obtaining 3kk quest gold and the Sword of Justice before the enemies take them. If these conditions aren't met, the walkthrough may drag on later.
315-42X The next most important moment is killing Thorgrim and Nella. Nella guards the Sphere of Vulnerability (a vital artifact without which completion is impossible). Thorgrim was killed on 322, Nella on 324. Two non-trivial battles, especially with Nella due to resistance (hello Jennifer). Then we gradually cut down the roaming heroes one by one—sphere, hypnosis, and terrain help if necessary—and also capture the surroundings with our "dummies" to whom I distributed Rust Dragons collected in large numbers from external dwellings. A particularly difficult battle was against Andro with 4.5k mana. I had to put him in a castle and drain all his mana using pegasi, ghosts, and imps. An extremely tedious battle. But other battles weren't easy either, as the enemy always had a large advantage in manpower and stats.
42X-5XX We move on to breaking static heroes, reaching level 88, and finishing by breaking the main bosses. By this point we have all key magic including Clone, which we can get in 2 ways—give Thunder of Titans to the guard or relearn it from Thorgrim. By the way, Thorgrim wasn't needed at all, although I did level him up to 88 just in case. Difficult battles were with Sandro (cast dispel for some unknown logic after looping), and a most difficult battle with Mutare—I had to spend half a day on this one battle alone until the tactic was found and everything fell into place. Lacus, who caused big problems for kolotok, was passed almost immediately; I managed to loop him into casting Haste at the moment we needed.
The map finale. Breaking the 3 main bosses started with Gundulla; for her, like Marlo, I picked terrain, but not the one he chose. I managed to find a spot accessible only to 1-hex units, then everything was elementary. The battle with Mephala on castle defense was conducted such that she didn't teleport golems until I drained all her mana down to 0. I caught a pattern of when she threw golems and when she didn't, and that's how the battle was won. And finally, the final battle with Gird. I put Gird in a castle; I won't reveal the details of the battle—let others struggle)). I broke all bosses with Kreg; neither Thorgrim nor anyone else was needed. I didn't swap Archangels for Titans; I saw no point and knew that even Gird, with his mega-damage from spells and fire shield, could be killed by archs, which is what was done. Victory on day 535. Titans were never needed, nor the 7k birds from the Seer. Rust Dragons were practically not needed except for one battle; Archangels were useful for only a couple of battles, as were Faerie dragons.
Summarizing, I can say that the map is of the highest quality—difficult, tempo-driven, but cool, and I definitely recommend it to all strong players. Considering the negatives, I'd give it 8-8.5 out of 10. Next, I plan to finally tackle the legendary xiedu, 6424 heroes, and the picturesque land.