Rasvetribka
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To whoever managed to complete this map on Hero difficulty, I admire your skill. I played as a hero with all races except Inferno and Academy, and all those attempts were failures. After 2-3 weeks, the AI is already rushing full speed to crush you. The longest time I managed to hold out was 3 months and 4 weeks. Then I tried once on Veteran, because I couldn't do anything on Hero, but everything went exactly as it did on Hero. After all that, I had to sink down to Warrior, and only then was I finally able to win, though that wasn't even that easy. For a long part of the game, I was kept under siege, because I didn same want to fight the AI in open battle, and he didn't want to fight me in the Castle.
That was my reasoning regarding the gameplay process; now let's move directly to the map.
Did I like the map? More no than yes. As for the pros, I'd like to note that the AI scales up very quickly and it' same been a long time since I sweated this much, but this can also be counted as a con, because I believe the map is impossible to complete on Hero. People wrote that they completed it, but apparently, I'm just a noob.
There is an absolute imbalance in the game. While playing, I was curious about what "food base" the AI had, since even after you defeat its main hero several times, after a short interval, he rushes at you again with a large army. When I played on Warrior and reached their territories, I saw the reason, but more on that later. First, let's analyze our territory.
And by the way, I can provide useful information for those planning to play this map. If you capture a mine or sawmill within the first week, the enemy will capture it at the start of the next week (this is done via scripts) and about 50 assassins will be posted as guards, which is a very strong opponent early in the game. So, on the last day of the first week, we need to stand next to the mine we captured first and pass the turn. The next day, a message about the capture of the mine will appear. The mine will pass into the enemy's hands, but the assassins will be shifted aside and we can calmly recapture the mine and kill the assassins at any time convenient for us. If you don't do this, we will simply wither away. Not only did we spend an army to beat the first guards, but then they send assassins too. I think that is too much.
Now let's move to the location of the mines (sulfur, crystals, gems, mercury). It's just terrible. Because of this layout, such problems with the AI arise. To reach these mines, you need to spend a week or even more. This journey is simply a huge waste of time. On top of all that, the AI constantly sends its scouts and captures these mines after you have cleared them, and going there personally again is not an option because it's once again too much of a waste of time and going yourself is dangerous since a powerful AI can pop up at any moment, and sending simple heroes there makes no sense as they will also be intercepted and killed. A partial solution to this problem would be even just a church in the area where the mines are clustered. So that after capturing these mines, an ordinary hero could be stationed in the church. And if the AI takes the mines, you could quickly take them back.
Let's return to the "food base." When I reached the opponents' cities on Warrior, I saw the following. The opponents have one-unit buildings, which gives them a small but steady income of army. The AI's mines are within walking distance. Thanks to this, it scales up much faster. This is not even mentioning that Blue and Green have Tear of Ashi built in their city (I don't know about Yellow since I captured his Castle last). Yellow also has many gold mines and two cities, but I would like to highlight that the Yellow player is the weakest. This was evident throughout all my attempts. And the strongest always turned out to be the Blue player. It was from him that I suffered defeat every single time.
Now regarding the quests. I consider them useless in material terms because if you've managed to get into the center of the map, there is no longer a need to complete them. They are more for the soul than for any actual benefit. I would also like to note several bugs. (Spoilers about quests follow, so skip the next paragraph if you haven't played this map).
The quest with Markel's skull. After we take the skull and move toward the prophet's hut (place the horse on his house, not somewhere nearby in that area), when we get closer, the Inquisition attacks us etc., and then they tell us that there is no one in the hut and we need to look in the fort. We may notice that we can no longer enter the hut area, but our "horse" is targeted at the hut and if you press "Space", we will calmly walk to the hut and be able to hand over the skull and complete the quest, obtaining our shackles. I subsequently reloaded because I wanted to see how the quest ended. I went to this fort. The Inquisition attacked again and I didn't progress further in the quest. I don't consider the fact that I didn't progress a bug; apparently, I just didn't understand what to do next. I also didn't like that the skull must be handed over. Personally, Markel's skull would have been much more preferable than shackles. Now about the quest with wolves. After killing them, the prophet has no button to end the search. Although it was written to kill 900 wolves, I definitely killed more than 1000. There were 3 squads of them. I don't remember exactly how many were in the first two, maybe 300 or 500, but the last one had 1184. Yet the quest still didn't close. Then the system for collecting keys is also a bit strange. To open the passage, it was necessary to visit the territories of all players, meaning it was implied this happens closer to the end of the game. But the reward there was pathetic. I killed 800 phoenixes for 5-7 chests, Horns of Plenty and Rings of Machine Kinship. They should have put at least Silanna's Tree so that this place had some value. And one more quest about treasures. I only found the Armor of Fearlessness at the start of the game, and nothing further.
Now regarding the map design. Everything seems to be done beautifully, I liked it, but there is something. The map is large but empty. Most of the map is occupied by mountains and forests, and in general, there's nowhere to wander. It felt kind of empty to me. There were no intriguing places or anything like that.
I played for quite a long time because I love exploring the map inside and out so as not to miss anything. But I never found a way to penetrate the camp of orcs and elves. In my opinion, this is one of the most interesting places since a legion of enemies has accumulated there and I would be interested in fighting them, especially when they write "No Chance", because winning then is twice as pleasant. Maybe I didn't find them because I'm blind, or maybe it was designed for atmosphere (if so, I think that's stupid).
My rating for this map is 3/10. I would not recommend spending time on it.
I am in no way trying to insult the author, because I understand how much time and effort were spent. But in my view, this time was spent almost in vain. Perhaps some think otherwise. This map is designed for those who start fast and love dynamic gameplay. I, however, love to play slowly, scaling up smoothly, so that there are garrisons with huge armies between player territories, so the AI doesn't constantly bother me, and then clash with massive armies.
I repeat, this is purely my opinion and I ask you to take the criticism without offense. Because I believe that when we point out mistakes to someone, it only benefits the person, and in the future, they will account for all their shortcomings.
Well, and further is just the story of my game; you can not read if you're not interested)
I played as Necromancers - Deidra. After about 3-4 weeks, I had my first battle with Blue AI's main hero - Miv (level 13), while I was level 7 or 8. We fought in the Castle; by a fortunate turn of events, I managed to win without losses. "Berserk" and "Spiritual Link" helped me out.
The threat was "Medium"
Then I relaxed a bit since I handled the first threat without losses. After about 3 weeks, Blue comes at me again - Ruthger again with a large army; I even wondered where he gets them from. This time there were already Archangels, who also caused a lot of trouble, and Paladins hindered me most of all by removing all negative effects. But everything went successfully with him too. The tactic was the same: hole up in the Castle, break the catapult, kill the shooters, and then deal with the flying creatures. There were losses, but small ones. The threat was also "Medium".
Then the Green player appeared - Daleb. In the Castle, she didn't want to fight me, and in the field, I had no chance. The threat was "Medium". I just stalled for time. As soon as I left the Castle, she immediately rushed after me. Also, I forgot to mention: I stumbled upon her in the center of the map near the observation tree while I was opening unknown territories. Naturally, when I bumped into her, I loaded a save from a day earlier and started running away from her. I thought I'd make it since I had a 2-day lead, but a mishap occurred. She caught up to me right before the Castle. I had one hero below in the mines and another collecting resources from mills (thank god I had them). I decided to distract the demon with these heroes to win some time, but he just ignored everyone and walked forward. And there was no possibility to load a save from an even earlier day because the saves had already been overwritten. I decided to transfer my army to the hero collecting resources from the mills and move myself aside, where there's a small island in the water in the shape of a spiral, but the demon didn't care about my hero. He was targeted straight at the Castle. Here I already despaired that so much game time was wasted and defeat had come, because I couldn't fight in the field and couldn't surrender since there was no money, but suddenly I was helped by the fact that the map author put strong guards on the yellow tent with the key, as it was the only creature nearby. I transferred my entire army to the hero at the mills; he had a full move and the demon wasn't chasing him. With my main hero, I headed to attack the tent guards. And what's interesting: my hero stood two steps away from the road the demon was taking, but he didn't even look at me and moved toward the Castle. Then I attacked the tent guards and fled, then I bought a hero in the tavern and thus ended up in the Castle. Fighting the demon would have been hardest because his imps drained mana, and I won all my battles only through magic. My warriors were very weak. My hero's attack was practically zero up to level 25. The demon refused to fight in the Castle and ran toward the mines. When he moved further away, I tried to leave the Castle, but he immediately turned around and rushed at me. Back into the Castle for me, and back to the mines for him. And so I chased him for 3-4 weeks until Yellow came and captured those mines. Then "chasing" the demon was no longer possible and he ran off somewhere far away. I wanted to wait a bit and try to leave. Another problem was that I was level 17 and couldn't learn "Town Portal". With that spell, it would have been easier. Then I was about to leave, but Blue came at me again - Axel, threat "High". I didn't panic much because my mana pool was already 70 (at the start it was hard with a small mana pool) and also I thought that since I had already beaten two of his heroes, this one was surely low-level and there was nothing to fear. But when he attacked me, he was level 22 and I panicked a bit. He had 14 Archangels, 390 Shooters, 40 inquisitors, 90 Bowmasters, 45 Paladins, and 460 Militia. While I had 500 skeleton archers (usually I take them with maces, but at the time of the siege, I converted them to archers), 250 plague zombies, 60 ghosts, 30 vampires, and 12 liches. The Bowmasters started their turn and immediately killed more than 200 of my archers. I immediately thought things were bad. When the hero's turn came, the first thing I did was Berserk on the inquisitors since they stood between the shooters and elves and I thought it didn't matter who, as long as he crippled someone. And with his strike, he killed all the elves at once. With my archers, I first broke the catapult. Ideally, I also wanted to use Berserk on the Archangels, but there was no point since the paladins' turn was earlier and he would have healed the archangels immediately, but I got lucky and the archangels' morale triggered and I used Berserk on them and with a lucky strike he killed almost all the paladins. Well, then it went in the same vein. (Although only now I realized I was describing the battle with Ruthger :D .But with him there were losses, whereas Axel had an army of 450 shooters, 250 zealots, 70 imperial griffins, 80 inquisitors, 50 paladins, 36 Knights of Isabelle, 24 Archangels. I don't remember my army, but it was much smaller. The tactic was the same: Berserk, Raise Dead, Banshee's Scream, Spiritual Link and destroying the catapult. In the end, I again won without losses. This battle decided the entire outcome of the game. I rose to level 20, got many good artifacts, especially Sar-Issa's Crown came in handy.
Then I boldly started leaving the Castle since I could use "Town Portal". After a couple of weeks, the demon returned, but this time he wasn't afraid of me in the Castle and came to attack me. The threat was "High". I don't remember the armies exactly, these are approximate figures: almost a thousand imps, 108 third-tier devils, 250 succubi, 780 horned demons, 320 cerberi, 120 nightmares and 70 cavern spawn. I was afraid of this battle because, first, the imps drained all my mana, and starting without mana is bad. Second, I feared her ballista. Third, I feared clones. In general, I was afraid of everything :D Skeletons started with the ballista, and liches with the catapult. The catapult was broken before it broke the wall. The start was already good. Then the clones started and the devil pushed inside, but surprisingly, only thanks to the clones did I win this battle. I gathered all my creatures in a corner. We killed all the clones, but the cavern lord clone stood exactly in the middle, and my vampire princes blinded him and the devil couldn't pass. Then we as a crowd beat the devil. He almost killed everyone. He certainly didn't reach the archers; if you don't count them, only half the zombies and some dragons survived. Then the shooting of everything else began, and while this shooting lasted, I slowly resurrected the undead. I resurrected almost everyone. The final losses were: 3 dragons, 77 zombies, 133 liches. It happened very stupidly with the liches. Basically, I stopped shooting the demons; only the towers shot, and I resurrected. And I kept resurrecting to such an extent that the lich's maximum health became equal to 1 and Daleb killed all my liches with an ice block. It was a shame of course, but I didn't want to replay the battle. It had already lasted too long.
Well, and after that, normal life began. I went traveling, but the only problem was that when I went too far, the AI rushed to my Castle. And I left my entire army at home and took only vampires with me and went further. This was enough for me. Because by that time I had learned Subjugation, Create Phantom, Wall of Swords and also bought Summon Phoenix. And then everything was simple. I searched the whole territory; I didn't attack the AI, leaving them for dessert. Some too bold ones attacked me but lost.
I happened to defeat 780 phoenixes with 650 vampires.
I played for a vvvvvery long time. I love exploring everything, killing everyone, etc.
Here are screenshots of my army, artifacts and abilities.
That was my reasoning regarding the gameplay process; now let's move directly to the map.
Did I like the map? More no than yes. As for the pros, I'd like to note that the AI scales up very quickly and it' same been a long time since I sweated this much, but this can also be counted as a con, because I believe the map is impossible to complete on Hero. People wrote that they completed it, but apparently, I'm just a noob.
There is an absolute imbalance in the game. While playing, I was curious about what "food base" the AI had, since even after you defeat its main hero several times, after a short interval, he rushes at you again with a large army. When I played on Warrior and reached their territories, I saw the reason, but more on that later. First, let's analyze our territory.
And by the way, I can provide useful information for those planning to play this map. If you capture a mine or sawmill within the first week, the enemy will capture it at the start of the next week (this is done via scripts) and about 50 assassins will be posted as guards, which is a very strong opponent early in the game. So, on the last day of the first week, we need to stand next to the mine we captured first and pass the turn. The next day, a message about the capture of the mine will appear. The mine will pass into the enemy's hands, but the assassins will be shifted aside and we can calmly recapture the mine and kill the assassins at any time convenient for us. If you don't do this, we will simply wither away. Not only did we spend an army to beat the first guards, but then they send assassins too. I think that is too much.
Now let's move to the location of the mines (sulfur, crystals, gems, mercury). It's just terrible. Because of this layout, such problems with the AI arise. To reach these mines, you need to spend a week or even more. This journey is simply a huge waste of time. On top of all that, the AI constantly sends its scouts and captures these mines after you have cleared them, and going there personally again is not an option because it's once again too much of a waste of time and going yourself is dangerous since a powerful AI can pop up at any moment, and sending simple heroes there makes no sense as they will also be intercepted and killed. A partial solution to this problem would be even just a church in the area where the mines are clustered. So that after capturing these mines, an ordinary hero could be stationed in the church. And if the AI takes the mines, you could quickly take them back.
Let's return to the "food base." When I reached the opponents' cities on Warrior, I saw the following. The opponents have one-unit buildings, which gives them a small but steady income of army. The AI's mines are within walking distance. Thanks to this, it scales up much faster. This is not even mentioning that Blue and Green have Tear of Ashi built in their city (I don't know about Yellow since I captured his Castle last). Yellow also has many gold mines and two cities, but I would like to highlight that the Yellow player is the weakest. This was evident throughout all my attempts. And the strongest always turned out to be the Blue player. It was from him that I suffered defeat every single time.
Now regarding the quests. I consider them useless in material terms because if you've managed to get into the center of the map, there is no longer a need to complete them. They are more for the soul than for any actual benefit. I would also like to note several bugs. (Spoilers about quests follow, so skip the next paragraph if you haven't played this map).
The quest with Markel's skull. After we take the skull and move toward the prophet's hut (place the horse on his house, not somewhere nearby in that area), when we get closer, the Inquisition attacks us etc., and then they tell us that there is no one in the hut and we need to look in the fort. We may notice that we can no longer enter the hut area, but our "horse" is targeted at the hut and if you press "Space", we will calmly walk to the hut and be able to hand over the skull and complete the quest, obtaining our shackles. I subsequently reloaded because I wanted to see how the quest ended. I went to this fort. The Inquisition attacked again and I didn't progress further in the quest. I don't consider the fact that I didn't progress a bug; apparently, I just didn't understand what to do next. I also didn't like that the skull must be handed over. Personally, Markel's skull would have been much more preferable than shackles. Now about the quest with wolves. After killing them, the prophet has no button to end the search. Although it was written to kill 900 wolves, I definitely killed more than 1000. There were 3 squads of them. I don't remember exactly how many were in the first two, maybe 300 or 500, but the last one had 1184. Yet the quest still didn't close. Then the system for collecting keys is also a bit strange. To open the passage, it was necessary to visit the territories of all players, meaning it was implied this happens closer to the end of the game. But the reward there was pathetic. I killed 800 phoenixes for 5-7 chests, Horns of Plenty and Rings of Machine Kinship. They should have put at least Silanna's Tree so that this place had some value. And one more quest about treasures. I only found the Armor of Fearlessness at the start of the game, and nothing further.
Now regarding the map design. Everything seems to be done beautifully, I liked it, but there is something. The map is large but empty. Most of the map is occupied by mountains and forests, and in general, there's nowhere to wander. It felt kind of empty to me. There were no intriguing places or anything like that.
I played for quite a long time because I love exploring the map inside and out so as not to miss anything. But I never found a way to penetrate the camp of orcs and elves. In my opinion, this is one of the most interesting places since a legion of enemies has accumulated there and I would be interested in fighting them, especially when they write "No Chance", because winning then is twice as pleasant. Maybe I didn't find them because I'm blind, or maybe it was designed for atmosphere (if so, I think that's stupid).
My rating for this map is 3/10. I would not recommend spending time on it.
I am in no way trying to insult the author, because I understand how much time and effort were spent. But in my view, this time was spent almost in vain. Perhaps some think otherwise. This map is designed for those who start fast and love dynamic gameplay. I, however, love to play slowly, scaling up smoothly, so that there are garrisons with huge armies between player territories, so the AI doesn't constantly bother me, and then clash with massive armies.
I repeat, this is purely my opinion and I ask you to take the criticism without offense. Because I believe that when we point out mistakes to someone, it only benefits the person, and in the future, they will account for all their shortcomings.
Well, and further is just the story of my game; you can not read if you're not interested)
I played as Necromancers - Deidra. After about 3-4 weeks, I had my first battle with Blue AI's main hero - Miv (level 13), while I was level 7 or 8. We fought in the Castle; by a fortunate turn of events, I managed to win without losses. "Berserk" and "Spiritual Link" helped me out.
The threat was "Medium"
Then I relaxed a bit since I handled the first threat without losses. After about 3 weeks, Blue comes at me again - Ruthger again with a large army; I even wondered where he gets them from. This time there were already Archangels, who also caused a lot of trouble, and Paladins hindered me most of all by removing all negative effects. But everything went successfully with him too. The tactic was the same: hole up in the Castle, break the catapult, kill the shooters, and then deal with the flying creatures. There were losses, but small ones. The threat was also "Medium".
Then the Green player appeared - Daleb. In the Castle, she didn't want to fight me, and in the field, I had no chance. The threat was "Medium". I just stalled for time. As soon as I left the Castle, she immediately rushed after me. Also, I forgot to mention: I stumbled upon her in the center of the map near the observation tree while I was opening unknown territories. Naturally, when I bumped into her, I loaded a save from a day earlier and started running away from her. I thought I'd make it since I had a 2-day lead, but a mishap occurred. She caught up to me right before the Castle. I had one hero below in the mines and another collecting resources from mills (thank god I had them). I decided to distract the demon with these heroes to win some time, but he just ignored everyone and walked forward. And there was no possibility to load a save from an even earlier day because the saves had already been overwritten. I decided to transfer my army to the hero collecting resources from the mills and move myself aside, where there's a small island in the water in the shape of a spiral, but the demon didn't care about my hero. He was targeted straight at the Castle. Here I already despaired that so much game time was wasted and defeat had come, because I couldn't fight in the field and couldn't surrender since there was no money, but suddenly I was helped by the fact that the map author put strong guards on the yellow tent with the key, as it was the only creature nearby. I transferred my entire army to the hero at the mills; he had a full move and the demon wasn't chasing him. With my main hero, I headed to attack the tent guards. And what's interesting: my hero stood two steps away from the road the demon was taking, but he didn't even look at me and moved toward the Castle. Then I attacked the tent guards and fled, then I bought a hero in the tavern and thus ended up in the Castle. Fighting the demon would have been hardest because his imps drained mana, and I won all my battles only through magic. My warriors were very weak. My hero's attack was practically zero up to level 25. The demon refused to fight in the Castle and ran toward the mines. When he moved further away, I tried to leave the Castle, but he immediately turned around and rushed at me. Back into the Castle for me, and back to the mines for him. And so I chased him for 3-4 weeks until Yellow came and captured those mines. Then "chasing" the demon was no longer possible and he ran off somewhere far away. I wanted to wait a bit and try to leave. Another problem was that I was level 17 and couldn't learn "Town Portal". With that spell, it would have been easier. Then I was about to leave, but Blue came at me again - Axel, threat "High". I didn't panic much because my mana pool was already 70 (at the start it was hard with a small mana pool) and also I thought that since I had already beaten two of his heroes, this one was surely low-level and there was nothing to fear. But when he attacked me, he was level 22 and I panicked a bit. He had 14 Archangels, 390 Shooters, 40 inquisitors, 90 Bowmasters, 45 Paladins, and 460 Militia. While I had 500 skeleton archers (usually I take them with maces, but at the time of the siege, I converted them to archers), 250 plague zombies, 60 ghosts, 30 vampires, and 12 liches. The Bowmasters started their turn and immediately killed more than 200 of my archers. I immediately thought things were bad. When the hero's turn came, the first thing I did was Berserk on the inquisitors since they stood between the shooters and elves and I thought it didn't matter who, as long as he crippled someone. And with his strike, he killed all the elves at once. With my archers, I first broke the catapult. Ideally, I also wanted to use Berserk on the Archangels, but there was no point since the paladins' turn was earlier and he would have healed the archangels immediately, but I got lucky and the archangels' morale triggered and I used Berserk on them and with a lucky strike he killed almost all the paladins. Well, then it went in the same vein. (Although only now I realized I was describing the battle with Ruthger :D .But with him there were losses, whereas Axel had an army of 450 shooters, 250 zealots, 70 imperial griffins, 80 inquisitors, 50 paladins, 36 Knights of Isabelle, 24 Archangels. I don't remember my army, but it was much smaller. The tactic was the same: Berserk, Raise Dead, Banshee's Scream, Spiritual Link and destroying the catapult. In the end, I again won without losses. This battle decided the entire outcome of the game. I rose to level 20, got many good artifacts, especially Sar-Issa's Crown came in handy.
Then I boldly started leaving the Castle since I could use "Town Portal". After a couple of weeks, the demon returned, but this time he wasn't afraid of me in the Castle and came to attack me. The threat was "High". I don't remember the armies exactly, these are approximate figures: almost a thousand imps, 108 third-tier devils, 250 succubi, 780 horned demons, 320 cerberi, 120 nightmares and 70 cavern spawn. I was afraid of this battle because, first, the imps drained all my mana, and starting without mana is bad. Second, I feared her ballista. Third, I feared clones. In general, I was afraid of everything :D Skeletons started with the ballista, and liches with the catapult. The catapult was broken before it broke the wall. The start was already good. Then the clones started and the devil pushed inside, but surprisingly, only thanks to the clones did I win this battle. I gathered all my creatures in a corner. We killed all the clones, but the cavern lord clone stood exactly in the middle, and my vampire princes blinded him and the devil couldn't pass. Then we as a crowd beat the devil. He almost killed everyone. He certainly didn't reach the archers; if you don't count them, only half the zombies and some dragons survived. Then the shooting of everything else began, and while this shooting lasted, I slowly resurrected the undead. I resurrected almost everyone. The final losses were: 3 dragons, 77 zombies, 133 liches. It happened very stupidly with the liches. Basically, I stopped shooting the demons; only the towers shot, and I resurrected. And I kept resurrecting to such an extent that the lich's maximum health became equal to 1 and Daleb killed all my liches with an ice block. It was a shame of course, but I didn't want to replay the battle. It had already lasted too long.
Well, and after that, normal life began. I went traveling, but the only problem was that when I went too far, the AI rushed to my Castle. And I left my entire army at home and took only vampires with me and went further. This was enough for me. Because by that time I had learned Subjugation, Create Phantom, Wall of Swords and also bought Summon Phoenix. And then everything was simple. I searched the whole territory; I didn't attack the AI, leaving them for dessert. Some too bold ones attacked me but lost.
I happened to defeat 780 phoenixes with 650 vampires.
I played for a vvvvvery long time. I love exploring everything, killing everyone, etc.
Here are screenshots of my army, artifacts and abilities.