Posts from Walkthroughs for custom maps.

Map: 世界之树 (Tree of the World) BT (CHI)
Author: casperstar
A more challenging version of BT

I'm going through a collection of Chinese maps and found a very interesting one. I decided to play the BT version, which is a more challenging option.
The map's design caught my attention; the author has created a very original layout (see screenshot). This usually indicates that the author approached the map with a certain degree of creativity.
I enjoyed the map and would give it a 7-8 out of 10.

The beginning of the map is, in a way, traditional: you start with two heroes who interact with each other from a distance. Kreg Hek travels along one route, while Luna travels along another. Each of them uses their abilities – attack and fire wall. It's not that the battles are incredibly difficult, but in Luna's case, she's followed by an enemy hero with an army, while we only have 1 fairy :) We need to escape, level up, and get the necessary artifact.
If the first few days are relatively straightforward for Kreg, Luna has options to choose from along the route, which will affect the number of days it takes her to reach the castle and, possibly, the overall result.
A key aspect of the early game is calculating movement: where we can travel, how much movement we have, how much mana Luna will spend, and whether we'll make it to the Swan Lake in the last movement. I had to replay the first few days 5-7 times to find a good starting save (this is when Kreg gets intelligence as a skill, and Luna levels up fire to at least the advanced level in 1 or 2 levels, but she could also take wisdom!).
In principle, the starting save isn't as important as in other Chinese maps. Essentially, it's important to get good hero development so that it doesn't go wrong. Since the map bans logistics and pathfinding, and we need to travel a lot across sand and snow, we need to choose wisely, as our starting heroes can get both skills from the scholars. But I still chose Kreg: out of 3 free slots, he gets wisdom, intelligence, and tactics. Luna ended up with wisdom, all the elements, logistics, intelligence, and tactics. The tactics skill, especially in the first half of the map, is very helpful in battles, so I took it for many heroes.
Kreg can get his starting artifact for neutral morale, but it's not essential.
Critically, in the starting save, you can note the absence or presence of a Guardian Stack in the stack of giants, which is located not far from the first Flax castle, where Luna will arrive. In SoD, I had it, and it's impossible to kill 10 fairies, titans, and giants, but when I reloaded without HD+, it disappeared, and Luna destroyed the giants. There may also be a different Dragon Utopia, which can be taken with 10 fairies and Luna :) see the screenshots from the first week.
By the end of day 112, Kreg took Flax, bought a book for himself, and spent the night at Swan Pond near the Red Guard.
Luna, by the end of day 113, took the Red Tent (allowing Kreg to travel further) and settled in Swan Lake with 11 fairies. On day 115, Luna takes Flax and kills the hero who was following us.
Overall, I can give the map a high rating, especially because of the beginning of the first week, where you need to manage your time and plan your logistics well, otherwise you can ruin the beginning of the map. Nothing is impossible, but you need to think everything through. It's interesting that the author gave us the opportunity to collect the Cursed Armor with Luna, but ideally, you shouldn't do this for the sake of tempo :)
By day 117, I had 2 Flax castles, Sylvia was freed, and I managed to place bears in the captured Stronghold, which is also important. Heroes were bought in the tavern and sent on their own missions.
Next, we have the freedom to go south from the Strongholds, break through to the brown tent, break through to the brown Isre, etc., but there is little time, because on day 126, we will have 2 enemy heroes with impressive armies under our castle, which we need to defeat without significant losses.
Secondly, it will be critical to kill Alamar with 830 upgraded Liches! before day 147, otherwise, we won't be able to open the passage guard later, and we will lose access to the location with 2 Strongholds, a growth bonus, an alliance with angels, 2 Town Portal scrolls, etc. This will probably be game over!
But there is a way to speed things up, called diplomacy :)
The map is also interesting in terms of how quickly it can be completed; the map allows for a fast pace.

Another interesting aspect of the map is that it doesn't have resurrection (and you need to play battles very carefully); it is given together with the КЗ for a certain time, but there is a clone in one place in the deserts on an event, and there is berserk in a scroll (and later in the castle).
The map is also notable for its interactions, whether it's different locations or different heroes. You can always think about how to avoid losing your army, artifacts, or time. For this, a separate respect to the author for the idea of interaction on the map.
Another interesting thing is that some places on the map can be passed alternatively. For example, you can finish the game and get the necessary artifact in two places; I did this on the water. I assume that the text on the map is VERY interesting, and the author is telling us what's what, which path to take, etc. But since it's Chinese, nothing can be understood (and I would like to).
In general, the map is designed for a fast playthrough. I managed to finish it on day 337, but it could have been a week faster if I hadn't let my main hero travel on stat-boosting locations; I didn't need to do that anymore, the final boss fell apart in one or two turns.
I assume that if you play very quickly, you can get the Admiral's Hat before day 137 and save a lot of movement points on deploying/undeploying. You can also skip the stat-boosting locations for the main hero, as you can complete the map by taking 4 Pandoras behind the dragons and 1 event behind the azure dragon near Flax. This is enough for everything :)
If the first half of the map is carried by Kreg and Luna, then in the second half, I chose Tazara as my main hero, who, by the end of the game, although he didn't have fire magic, was simply a monster in terms of stats.

Regarding enemy heroes
Besides Alamar, we can remember the following.
Loins can be easily defeated with a hit and run tactic or even without it. Just take phoenixes, and you can burn the enemy with Armageddon. If that doesn't work, summon earth elementals and burn the enemy anyway.
Solmyr on day 323 is also killed easily, see the screenshot. We attack with a couple of magic elementals + all the artifacts for speed. We hide them behind a force field, and then his djinn with berserk kill the giants.
FB turned out to be quite easy. After the catapult is destroyed, our archers kill all his trash, and then we summon 2400 crystal dragons at the beginning, give them berserk, and shoot down the archers. Even though Xyron has Armageddon's Blade, it doesn't help him.

To the disadvantages of the map, I would probably include the presence of berserk on the map, which makes the playthrough much easier. Also, the main heroes can be given badges of courage for minus magic and wisdom. And, of course, it's not possible to call this a BT version of the map when you get 20,000 fairies before the final battle! You can pass FB without them, Taraz has 3,500 mana and a lot of archers. The same applies to the presence of the Cursed Armor from the start; it can also be removed from the game without much loss.

In general, the map is very cool, and I definitely enjoyed it. Although it's probably not entirely accurate to call it a more challenging version.

I decided to revisit the Xiedu map and play through another small section. I'm playing "blindly" – without looking ahead or reading other people's Walkthroughs, and also in a rather unconventional way: without using any cheats or exploiting the "author's" obstacles on the battlefield. I've only used obstacles in one battle so far, where the garrison had 4200 champions. Most battles are either head-on confrontations or, if the opponent is too tough to fight on the battlefield (like that Swamp thing), I have to summon a "Kraken" and run as fast as I can to the nearest Castle, and then defend myself as best as I can without taking losses. I've farmed a thousand skeletons to help me out. :D With this "original" approach, it's no surprise that I have to replay battles and sections of the Walkthrough many times. Also, because of the huge number of resurrections in each battle, I'm almost always playing with a hero who has high intelligence, but unfortunately, he didn't get the "City Portal." I have to run from one end of the map to the other on foot. Consequently, progress is very slow. It's already the 9th month in the game, and I've barely explored half the map (I've cleared the Necropolis underground location, collected the Cursed Armor, defeated the Swamp thing, and obtained the City Portal for two heroes and antimagic). Of course, I could speed up the process by using the City Portal to jump to the Castle where, due to a bug in HD+, a Necromancer with thousands of dragons has been sitting since the beginning of the game, but that would be completely pointless. Let him stay there until the end of the game. And what's even funnier, demons have recently spawned near that Castle. :rolleyes: For now, I can conclude that playing through such maps is quite a challenging task for "fans." So, I need to take a week or two off from all these replays and then try to play through a bit more.

scars of reality, if you don't look for ways to "exploit" the "author's" obstacles on the battlefield, many battles become very difficult (if they are even passable at all). Take, for example, the Swamp creature or a hero with mythical and golden dragons, who appears quite early; I can't even imagine how to defeat him at that stage of the game. And I agree with the author above that here, Hitran was most likely intended as part of the game. Take, for example, an orange character with creatures and earth elementals. With 1 Hitran and a main hero, we can defeat them in 2 battles, each lasting 2 minutes, but without Hitran, it's something like a battle in a dungeon, where we spent 15 minutes beating a hero with a Castle of Conflux with a vampire, and here it will take even more time. In this regard, I liked The Lord of Rings more. We have marked fields with boxes + you can't accumulate an army; the map will punish you for this. In Xiedu, of course, there is the possibility of accumulating an army and fighting head-on).

We've identified areas with boxes, and it won't be possible to accumulate an army; the map will penalize you for that.

Could you rephrase or explain this sentence? I didn't understand what you meant by "areas with boxes" (I haven't played this map).
I'm currently playing a map that was previously reviewed here, and after finishing it, I want to add my thoughts and some useful information for others who might want to play it but encounter difficulties.

Could you rephrase/explain this sentence? I didn't understand what you meant by "fields with boxes" (I haven't played this map).

Well, it refers to the battlefields where there's an enclosed cell.
The idea behind many "difficult" maps is to "find a loophole" and hide a stack of units in it.

I mean the battlefields where there is a closed cell.
The idea of many "complex" maps is to "find a loophole" and hide a stack in it.

That's exactly it. In many battles, it comes down to hiding a unit in a safe zone. Either on a plain or in a castle, somehow block one stack, cast hypnosis, and hide your main stack between this unit and a conditional tent. And then you have to figure out what spell to cast so that the computer doesn't cast a spell to remove the charm or antimagic, or so that some archer doesn't finish us off).
But this is much more fun and challenging than in many simpler maps where it's just wall against wall, clone against archons, and then we resurrect.

if you don't look for ways to "exploit" the "author's" obstacles on the battlefield, many battles become very difficult.

I know that the author intentionally placed tiles on the map with terrain that is convenient for the upcoming battles, and also provided an opportunity for clever tactics (I glanced at how people generally passed the parts that I have already passed). But for now, this is a kind of mini-challenge for me – to pass it as simply as possible, in an "amateur" way. I understand that I have only passed the easy part of the map so far, and that the opponents will be much tougher later on, and it may simply be impossible to do without clever tactics, but I won't get ahead of myself.

a bog monster or a hero with fairy and golden dragons, who appears quite early, I can't even imagine how to kill him at this stage of the game.

The bog monster only reached my Castle by the end of the 7th, beginning of the 8th month. After wandering around the area for a while, this little rascal got into a boat, where he was locked up for several weeks by two pits and one hero. Meanwhile, I visited the brown tent in advance, went upstairs, and captured several Castles with interesting spells. Along the way, I also farmed a few more thousand skeletons. Then I returned, released the bog monster from the boat, and let him attack the Castle.

I haven't reached Jhelu with fairy and golden dragons yet, let alone the orange one. When the time comes, I will try to defeat them without clever tactics and exploits. But if it really doesn't work out, then I guess I will have to resort to them.

where we spent 15 minutes beating a hero with a vampire from the Conflux Castle.

Masochistic battles lasting 15 minutes or more are quite normal for me. Just one 3-hour final battle on the Break In One Day map by wenwell is worth mentioning. :D And on this map, there have already been several battles lasting 20-30 minutes.

Masochistic battles lasting 15 minutes or more are perfectly normal for me. Just the 3-hour final battle on the Break In One Day map by wenwell is worth mentioning. :D And there have already been several battles on this map that lasted 20-30 minutes.

If you can handle that and have plenty of free time, I think you'll be fine.

scars of reality, it's funny that I somehow managed to bring the Cloak of the Undead King up from the Necropolis lands. At first I thought maybe I had converted some joined imps, but the fight with the Bogling says otherwise. I don't remember the map in detail anymore, it was a long time ago, and currently I have no way to check it in the editor, but back in the day I couldn't find a way to wander around with the Cloak of the Undead King wherever I pleased :D Plus, this Nicholas came to me on his own, rather than standing behind the brown guard.

It's funny that I somehow managed to pull the Cloak of the Undead King out of the Necropolis lands. At first, I thought maybe I converted some joined Imps, but the fight with the Bog Monster says otherwise.

Actually, it's quite simple. I visited the blue tent and got access to the portal between levels, which is located behind the blue gates. Any logistics hero with a fast unit can pass through the "river" with mushroom rings even without visiting the stables and can retrieve the Cloak of the Undead King.

The Imps wanted to join me only a couple of times during the whole game. I farmed skeletons only in battles, each of which brought around a thousand +/- a few hundred.

The first skeletons were brought by this battle, I think

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SltettUJXOU

Then the garrison with 4200 Champions, the battle for the Boots of Levitation with 4800 Elementals, a dozen and a half fights with heroes having armies of many thousands. So, little by little, it added up.

Also, this Nicholas guy came to me on his own, he wasn't stuck behind the brown Guardian.

Nicholas, as I understand it, came to many people on his own. But I decided that option didn't suit me. :D

The problem is that many people, after visiting the brown tent, immediately run away, thus releasing the red hero with 140 Angels. He, naturally, enters the brown tent because he has nowhere else to go. Accordingly, Nicholas and everyone else who wants to get through get the opportunity to open the brown pillars and pass through the brown gates.

I did it my own way. I immediately noticed that this red hero was standing on cursed ground, and hitting him there without losses was impossible. However, considering that more than half of his stacks are walkers, engaging him in a castle would be ideal.

So, I took a strong hero with almost the entire army, including 5K skeletons, and brazenly stood on the tent. And it turned out that the red one was too scared to attack him. He just stands there and does nothing. He's afraid to pass the tent, and he can't pass through the black gates.

Next, you just need to give him the ability to pass through the black gates. I send a weak hero down and release the red hero with 250 Phoenixes (along the way, you can snag a decent spawn of Vampires, Cavaliers, and other Liches from the bottom purple castle). There's a black tent next to this red hero. He goes into it and then heads down to the purple castle, standing near it for several weeks. Now the red hero with 140 Angels can pass through the black gates and goes for a walk, without entering the brown tent. In about a week or a little less, he reaches the first castle, where we meet him. Killing him while he's inside the castle is a piece of cake.

After visiting the brown tent, new areas for exploration open up for us, while the reds remain stuck behind the pillars and gates for as long as I need.

It looked something like this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-yHjgc0lhFg

There will also be a moment when, after some time, the red hero with 250 Phoenixes starts jumping using Dimension Door. The first thing he does is jump towards the brown tent. Consequently, I place an empty hero near the spot where he lands (again, this is Mutare Drake) so that this pest runs not to the tent, but towards my hero. After killing Mutare, he forgets about the tent and runs off in a completely different direction. And the tent remains unvisited by the enemy.

Then he starts hopping around the location, and sooner or later he jumps into the castle, where I need to catch him. But that's a story for another time.

Are the Gloves of the Horseman needed to drag the Cloak of the Undead King through the water corridor? If so, does that mean the Bird of Knowledge was first delivered to the necro zone behind a hero with ogres?

The brown tent thing is cool. I initially thought you had killed that hero near the tent directly on the cursed ground with legions of skeletons :)

If there are no complaints about the possibility of saving the starting necro with an army for Cizon, then with the Cloak of the Undead King he clearly dropped the ball somewhere.

Added after 47 minutes
I looked at what's what. In my walkthrough, I got myself killed by Aiden against a hero with two stacks of pegasi after visiting the blue tent. In that case, only a hero from the underground with the Gloves of the Horseman (needs 2815 movement points) can cross the water corridor. To get the gloves, I had to give up the Cloak of the Undead King, and then Mullich would run across the corridor and activate the obelisk near the external tavern. But if you don't lose Aiden, he can take the gloves himself by defeating the hero with the ogres. So my question to Cizon is precisely about the purpose of these gloves on the map :) Although perhaps the author intentionally left the possibility of exploiting skeletons through the Cloak of the Undead King.

Gloves are needed, but they are held by that hero with ogres and rocs. We kill him, take the gloves, and then grab the bird. We give all of this to the main hero, who is a "Logistician," and he goes through the portal down below. There, he gives the gloves to the lady with Cloak of the Undead King, and she goes up. He himself continues on with the bird and passes the pillar that requires this bird. He picks up the second bird and the dragons, and claims the second pair of gloves. He returns to the top, opens the quest pillar that requires the bird and other artifacts. The plan of action is fairly simple. Here is a rough run-through of this stage:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HvSxtoifkbc

A couple of months ago, I tried playing one of the season maps — way home; or rather, to check how far one could get in the first stage of the game by prioritizing logistics. I chose capturing the Tower and killing the hero RegLightning as my goal. The test showed that, in theory, he can be killed at 131 without a lightning charm and without resurrection, with losses of, say, 2 titans and some small fry, after which we buy out his growth. But this requires a huge amount of RNG in battle — you need to destroy the towers without breaching the walls, absolutely land Air Shield along with other important spells (then he prefers to cast Haste and doesn't use lightning), and finally land Anti-Magic, during which time we kill the enemy. This can be done on fixed random; without it, it's almost impossible.

Deployment + build paths. I had to spend quite a while generating a save with the correct builds (for this goal?) for two heroes, but the (recently updated!) LMOracle program was very helpful here.

Actually, Gabriel reaches RegLigtning at 127, but I see no point in having him fight since even Rick barely manages it.

I haven't played further yet, and likely won't, as I need to work on my own map. Another problem is that I'm not sure where to go next because I haven't played the map before; consequently, I'm not entirely confident in the build choices.

I played up to the point where you first have to run away from a guy with 300 angels, and then you have to kill him. Since I was playing with HD+ and SoD_SP out of habit, this guy simply vanished at the spot where some metamorphoses were supposed to happen to his army.

Does anyone have a save with this poor fellow? I want to see what he'll do in my game)

Do you have a save file with this poor guy? I want to see what he will do for me.

Yes, only this save file remained from that attempt to start the Walkthrough. I continued from it when I returned to this map.

The turquoise guy named Karayan. If you play with HD+, he kills the green dragons and disappears. After that, it becomes impossible to open the quest marker, and the map becomes unplayable.

With HD+ disabled, he doesn't disappear but turns into a Seer, and his army, instead of 300 angels + 1 fanatic, becomes 60 fanatics + 17 griffins + 42 spearmen + 42 halberdiers. I really didn't understand where the rest of the troops came from. In the Seer, he is only given fanatics. Did he collect them at events beforehand?

Another interesting point. After killing this guy, I returned to the starting location and took several archangels. Although I spent a couple of extra weeks on the return trip, it was worth it. Later, the archangels were very useful to me in many battles.

But on this map, you can do a lot of crazy things. For example, after returning for the archangels, you can time it right and have this Rogge run through the fields to the portal to the Necropolis location, where our aunt went earlier. However, there is no point in this, and the Walkthrough will become much more difficult.

But the map is really very cool. I have only completed half of it so far, but I am constantly amazed at how carefully everything is thought out on it. It is quite obvious that the author has done a tremendous amount of work.

A turquoise guy named Karayan. If playing with HD+, he kills the green dragons and disappears.

After the battle with the green dragons, an event is triggered, in which a battle takes place with 1097 Naga Queens. Apparently, the number of Nagas is chosen in such a way that the computer eliminates 300 Angels, receiving a small army in return. Obviously, with HD+, the computer simply can't handle this battle and loses, rather than just disappearing. Without HD+ and SOD_SP, everything goes perfectly.