Posts from Walkthroughs for custom maps.

Go ahead, of course. The Xiedu piece turned out to be excellent reading.

scars of reality, there is (currently) no law requiring strict adherence to a specific review format. :) I write in the format that has gradually developed for me over the years. When the description of the walkthrough becomes too long, I try to shorten it. And I like to read these kinds of walkthroughs (Xaart's are all roughly in this style). It would be great to read something similar.
By the way, I've completed 3 maps recently, but they are too easy and won't interest many people with their walkthroughs, and the 4th (Dunkler Horizont) has already been thoroughly analyzed; I just wanted to give my opinion, and I also re-translated all the texts, so if anyone needs it, feel free to ask.

Which version should I play?

Sylvan I don't think it's worth playing version 1.2, and it's not worth restarting the map on the new version 1.3, as version 1.4 is expected to be released soon.

Map: A Long Way (version 1.0, but not exactly)
Author: Grigor Minchev

So, I did eventually finish A Long Way. I won't write about the map itself, as there is already a very good report on it. Therefore, I will only recount my walkthrough sequentially. Perhaps some of you will find this interesting.

First of all, I would like to draw attention to one important point. The author of the map reads this thread and apparently even posts here while trying to remain incognito. As it happens, after several comments regarding certain "peculiarities" of the map, he began releasing new versions one after another, where elements described by me (and others) were edited. Therefore, some actions from my description are no longer relevant in newer versions.

But regardless, I will still note two significant things. First, it is highly desirable to capture the Dungeon located near the starting area on 1.1.6 and not a day later. The author doesn't mention this anywhere; nevertheless, this non-obvious action makes the initial stage of the walkthrough noticeably easier. Second, one must decide what to do with the main hero's experience. The thing is, at the start, he has -1,230,000 (minus one million two hundred thirty thousand) experience points, which is very unpleasant. The first possible solution is the Tree of Knowledge located near the hero. It is the only one on the map and was clearly placed here for a reason. By entering this tree, negative experience is instantly reset to zero, and the hero can begin leveling up. I won't go into detail about the consequences of resetting or not resetting experience in the Tree. This point is described in detail and clearly in the aforementioned map review. I'll only say that I decided not to "hold a referendum" for Lord Haart immediately, but to do so after he acquired some useful skills like Logistics or Pathfinding. (*In the latest versions of the map, resetting experience is no longer possible — the Tree of Knowledge is gone).

I started by almost completely repeating the path taken in Alexandretta. As expected, I captured the Dungeon, then ran through the "cans," where I gathered nearly 40 angels in total, broke open a couple of very important Pandora's boxes, and captured the mines. Since the passage to the Tower located to the north was inaccessible to me (I missed the Seer who requires the Red Orb), I bought a boat and sailed to another Seer's Hut, where the Titan's Gladius could be exchanged for Boots of Levitation. Given the hero's level zero, further compounded by a huge negative experience, I decided that such an exchange was extremely unfavorable. The Gladius gave +12 attack, and I really didn't want to lose this advantage before the upcoming battles. Therefore, I simply returned to the starting Castle and since there was an enticingly looking portal to the Red respawn nearby, I began playing in that direction with the persistence of an idiot.

It's worth noting one small but very important difference between this map and Alexandretta. While there you could build Taverns in castles and run around the respawn with several "dummies," here Taverns cannot be built in our initial castles, and for the first few months, you have to play as Lord Haart solo. This is likely why I was so drawn to the Red castles, where Taverns were built and there was an opportunity to buy new heroes.

I replayed several times, trying to establish a foothold at the Red respawn. Immediately after getting harpies, I rushed to the Reds. I rushed first for angels, then to the Red respawn. I rushed first for angels, then opened the passage to the Tower, got more harpies, and rushed to the Reds again.

And although this path ultimately proved wrong, in my last attempt, I actually managed to push quite far. I captured 2 red castles, dove underground, and via one of the many winding paths reached some Conflux. During this run, even without "Clone" and "Blindness," I was able to defeat three fairly strong enemy heroes. Thus, using hypnosis obtained in the first Inferno, I dealt with the Red main, Xeron. Then, using the Force Field obtained at the Conflux, I was able to fend off Mutare with dragons and Kalid with a huge swamp army. But as I said, expansion in this direction ultimately turned out to be pointless. After the battles with these monsters, the main hero's experience began rapidly approaching the zero mark, which was extremely disadvantageous. Moreover, right at that moment, a green Barbarian living north of my starting respawn broke through the gates and moved toward my castles with a massive army.

Realizing I was playing incorrectly, I decided to roll back a couple of months to the moment where a choice had to be made: whether to give away the Titan's Gladius at the Seer's Hut or not. Resigning myself to a severe drop in Attack, I gave away the Gladius, received the Boots of Levitation, and began playing according to a different scenario. First, I crossed the water and began scouting everything possible. In the south, I was quickly caught by the monstrous Mutare, but slightly further east, I finally found the Red tent and could now aim to capture the very interesting Paconi Stronghold.

I return to the starting Castle, where a Monastery has already been built by event, and then I build a Portal of Glory with my own resources. I take everything needed for the march north and capture the Tower. After some time, I get the units necessary to open the passage to Paconi and capture this Stronghold. In it, basically nothing interests me except the Mages Guild. Actually, the situation looks quite comical: when has it ever happened that having a Castle, Dungeon, and Tower, the most valuable and desired thing for us was a guild from a Stronghold?

Also, near this castle stand several Scholars providing important secondary skills such as Intelligence, Pathfinding, Logistics, etc. I take only Logistics and, leaving two free slots, decide to reset the remaining -350K experience in the Tree of Knowledge (*not applicable in newer versions).

Then, gathering all my troops together—which consists of fifty archangels and 5K harpies—I return to the Tower, where I must break through to the Green tent. Doing this earlier was practically impossible, as the passage is guarded by thousands of snipers. But having obtained "Forgetfulness" in Paconi, breaking through these legions of snipers is no longer difficult. I visit the Green tent, and now we can release a hero named Lenin (actually a Dragon with Wizard specialization) from prison, who also has 2700 free dwarves. Next, in another Pandora's box, we receive a thousand genies and nearly fifty angels. These creatures, along with the existing thousands of harpies, will make up our main army.

Meanwhile, the fourth month is coming to an end. I leave the genies in the Tower, as there is no money for their upgrade. Money on this map is a sore subject in general. Judge for yourself: at the beginning of the 4th month, when I was still running to the Red respawn, I had 5 castles, a gold mine, a bag of gold for +500, and 2 heroes with the "Property" skill. Total income from all this splendor was 4250 gold per day. And that's actually quite a lot. For the first 2-3 months, you have to survive on an income of no more than 1500-1600 gold per day. Additionally, every visit to Pandora's boxes resets both resources and money. In short, a significant part of the map must be traversed in "pauper" mode.

Financial issues are solved through several very fat piles of gold, as well as by selling "extra" units at the Mercenaries Guild. Thus, Lord Haart drags the dwarves down to be sold, while Ilyich, slightly leveled up in Seers' Huts, remains in the Tower with the genies. Selling the dwarves allows upgrading the angels obtained from the pandora, and this is very timely, as a green barbarian has already arrived at our respawn. This is Sephinrot with a huge army. He has already broken through the gates and is rapidly approaching our Dungeon. Lord Haart, with a hundred archangels and 5K harpies, fends him off while sitting in the castle.

The battle isn't very difficult, but to pass it without losses, I had to spend at least an hour on it. The difficulty lay in the fact that I had to randomize morale and resists. Not my own, but the enemies'. On this map, the author seemingly didn't bother and gave all enemy heroes practically the same set of secondary skills. Besides expert Logistics and Pathfinding, they all have expert Leadership and Magic Resistance. Accordingly, enemy units often have morale swings, and resistance triggers at the most inconvenient moments. This was terribly annoying and forced me to replay some battles many times.

Having fended off Sephinrot without losses, one can finally gather all forces and begin their own offensive.

End of part one.

 

 

Added after 32 minutes

A Long Way. Part Two.

Having run enough during these months around the starting respawn and destroyed a very strong green player, Lord Haart begins advancing north. Along the way, Lenin brings reinforcements in the form of 1.2K upgraded genies, and also converts all available monks and mages into 60 wizards. Thus, the main army consists of 100 archs, 5K harpies, 1.2K genies, and 60 wizards. I'll say right away that with such an army, Lord Haart easily wipes out any opponent.

First things first, we capture the green Stronghold. In it, as well as nearby, there are several interesting things. Primarily, a Tavern, where we can finally buy heroes. Near the castle is a White tent, and in front of it is a very interesting Pandora's box. The selection of heroes in the tavern turned out to be not very interesting, and I, just like Marlo in his walkthrough, couldn't find a more suitable hero for the role of second main than Nila.

After passing the pandora, Nila receives useful skills and free troops, including a fat stack of 90 non-upgraded behemoths. Then she visits the White tent, and we finally have the opportunity to take the scroll with the "Clone" spell. Meanwhile, Ilyich resets his own negative experience in the Tree of Knowledge and slowly begins to level up as a third strong hero.

Without putting things off, Lord Haart captures the second barbarian castle located nearby, and then takes the scroll with "Clone". With a hundred archs and Clone, he becomes practically invincible. In any case, such weaklings fly away in a couple of rounds, and with opponents like these, although one has to fiddle a bit, the difficulty lies not so much in winning, but in preventing them from fleeing prematurely.

So, Lord Haart's army is fully equipped, meaning it's high time to assemble a dowry for Nila — and those will be the behemoths. While money for the behemoths accumulates, Lord Haart, Nila, and 1-2 dummies scout new territories, where they gradually seize mines and capture a couple of new castles. After this, Lord Haart and Nila return. Nila finally receives a huge pack of 170 behemoths and becomes a very formidable opponent.

The last captured Stronghold, Dunav, becomes the starting point of our expansion. Lord Haart goes down and then underground, while Nila with her pack of behemoths heads northeast, where she begins to terrorize various enemy small fry and capture everything that comes her way. Gradually, her army grows with phoenixes from captured Confluxes. It should be noted that my starting castles generated poorly, and three colors received Confluxes at the start. There's little pleasant about this, because that means damn phoenixes, meaning the computer gets the first move; no one besides fairies can be blinded, and they almost never bring them along; and simply horse-sized armies that they can assemble from identical castles. By the end of the 6th month, I killed probably nearly a thousand phoenixes across different heroes.

Underground, Lord Haart begins capturing castles, but soon his old friends Mutare and Kalid come running to him. Their army is much larger than last time, but Haart has become an order of magnitude stronger, so it's no trouble for him to fend off first Mutare and then Kalid using old schemes (the battles are almost the same as in previous videos, so you can skip watching them).

Next begins a long and grueling struggle for control over the map. For several months, my mains chase enemy dummies, and enemy mains chase my dummies. Cities, mines, and other objects change hands many times. All this is exacerbated by the fact that it mostly takes place in the swamp, and most enemy heroes have expert Logistics and Pathfinding.

What's happening is hard to describe in words, and it seems that complete Chaos has descended upon the map. However, that's not the case. Slowly but surely, territory passes under our control, flags of different colors gradually disappear from the map, and by the end of the 9th month, control over the accessible part of the map is seemingly established. But it's not that simple. The thing is, a significant part of the underground is still not open, and there are several portals in the territories we captured. Two of them are one-way, and they can be plugged with our heroes and strong armies. But there are two more portals whose access is closed by brown gates, and this is a real problem. As soon as my hero moves a bit further away, enemies rush out of these portals and start recapturing everything.

But worst of all, I have absolutely no idea what I should do next and in which direction to move. It became clear that continuing to play without the editor would likely be impossible. I was too lazy to sit and examine the map under a microscope, but it would be foolish to quit — I've already progressed too far. So I open the map in the editor and start searching for where the Brown tent is and how to reach it. But barely having started plotting a path to the Brown tent (I assume something incredibly long and convoluted was there), I noticed that in the area of Agoura castle, the opposite shore is very close and can be crossed with Boots of Levitation. The only problem is that it's not visible. But one can buy a hero with Scouting specialization and equip them with a Spyglass, once seized from an enemy hero. I buy a suitable hero, pump up their expert Scouting, give them the Spyglass, and he runs to the shore near Agoura. But no, the opposite shore is still not visible.

However, examining this part of the map in the editor, a bit higher up I noticed a small nook with Solmir locked in prison and several interesting objects, including Speed Boots. I wondered if my Scout could first walk on water into that nook, and then with Gloves, Boots, and a fast unit run down to Agoura and reveal the opposite shore during this run? I test this theory, and it seems to work. The distance from that nook to the lower shore is slightly less than 2900 movement points, meaning any hero with Gloves and Boots can cover this distance, and with the help of the Spyglass, a small part of the opposite shore can be revealed. Since we're on a roll, I decided to check other places on the map for the possibility of bypassing obstacles using scouting and walking on water. And it turned out there were quite a few such places.

In the end, it was decided to roll back 3 months and replay the last segment anew.

End of part two.

 

Added after 38 minutes

A Long Way. Part Three.

Slightly optimizing my actions and preparing in advance for important quests, following a similar scenario, I play out the beginning of the dungeon capture by Haart and the upper part of the map by Nila. 

By the beginning of the 7th month, everything is ready to pull off the adventure of capturing previously inaccessible brown and green resps. A Scout is bought and leveled up, given the necessary artifacts and units, and the Scout, having first illuminated the area around Agoura, crosses into the nook to Solmir. Having completed all tasks in this nook and obtained the Speed Boots, the scout runs across the water to Agoura, simultaneously illuminating the opposite shore. After which, the capture of previously inaccessible territories can begin. (*In the current latest version of the map, this and several other places were edited — the author piled rocks there, and crossing by water is now impossible).

Despite the fact that this time a much larger territory needs to be captured, I already know what needs to be done and play much more aggressively. Via blitzkrieg, I capture a huge piece of the underground location where the browns lived, after which, as last time, I systematically squeeze out territories and castles from the computers. In the end, by the second half of the eighth month, the map is cleared again, and this time completely. Only oranges and reds remained, each having one city apiece.

Then follows another visit to the editor, based on which a plan for further actions is drawn up.

First, it's necessary to visit the Purple tent. An unpleasant point here is that to gain access to the Purple tent, as a result of a quest chain, we are forced to give up the Boots of Levitation. The artifact is imba on the map and I really wouldn't want to part with them. And since Boots of Levitation are also required to enter the Grail search zone, it can be concluded that they are definitely not alone on the map. Through the editor, we find a second pair of Boots and, after traveling a rather long way, we take them. I did it as follows. First, I collected three different "bags of gold" for 500, 750, and 1000 gold, which allowed me to proceed to the Portal leading to a previously unvisited underground location. There, thanks to the Spyglass, I also manage to cut the path a bit and not drag myself god knows how far through multi-kilometer winding paths. And the subsequent passage to the boat also does not require going through the Guardian and Pandora's box.

Next follows a rather long swim, as a result of which I take the second pair of Boots of Levitation and other artifacts necessary for the future.

Lord Haart returns, exchanges one pair of Boots of Levitation for the Helmet of Celestial Enlightenment, and with the previously obtained Cloak of Dragon Wings can now visit the Purple tent. Next is the Black tent, and then, after visiting the Seer's Hut where we take the Sword of Justice and Pandora's box where we get a huge pack of harpies, the Blue tent is visited.

The last thing left for us to do is dig up the Grail. But since obelisks here are scattered across the entire map and access to many of them is extremely difficult, it was decided not to bother with them, and after Lord Haart ran through a few relatively accessible obelisks and opened part of the puzzle map, a brigade of diggers was sent to search for the Grail. For several weeks, five heroes worked tirelessly, and at some point, even the main hero joined the excavations.

By the time the Grail was found, the plot where it was hidden looked more like a potato field after harvest, but the goal was achieved — the Grail was in our hands and the main hero happily galloped to the "Colossus" Castle, where it needed to be placed.

But he will have to linger a bit on the way. The thing is, an orange hero sitting in a location inaccessible to us is provided with decent reinforcements several times by event. For the main hero, this presents no danger whatsoever. He easily deals with any enemy armies. However, a dummy plugging the portal, even with a relatively large army, might not survive such attacks. Therefore, Lord Haart, passing by the portal around the same time, had to linger for a few days to fish out all these "monsters" crawling out of the portal.

Having dealt with the oranges, the main hero continues his journey to Colossus, where several other leveled-up heroes already await him. Due to mana depletion, I went through the final chain of battles with three heroes in turn. With such an army, doing this presented no difficulties, and the last 3 battles with azure dragons and the capture of the castle could even be entrusted to the computer on auto-battle. In the end, I finished on 13.2.7.

Things I decided not to do. I didn't finish off the Red computer (didn't even go toward its last castle once) and simply ignored quite a few quests. I didn't take "ogre artifacts," didn't free Kilgor, didn't free the hero with Boat Summon (if I understand correctly, for him to get this spell, you first need to fish out the floating Spell Book and give it to him), and also ignored almost all quests whose completion, in my opinion, was optional. Honestly, I still don't understand why there are so many quests on this map.

Overall, the map left impressions similar to Alexandretta: an interesting start, an interesting war with computers for control over the map, and at the same time frequent, irritating resource resets throughout the walkthrough and tedious unraveling of quests at the end. Although I am sure there are many players who like the author's maps specifically for this.

THE END.

 

As I mentioned before, I also used the scouting exploit on this map. In my case, Nila, after being revealed by Fiona, would move to the rocky shore near the Barbarians. In general, at the time of completing the map, these scouting tricks seemed like a solution, but it would be better to remove this type of bypass, as it significantly reduces the gameplay content on the map: firstly, eliminating the green and brown factions becomes a relatively easy task; secondly, a specific red hero, Sir Mullich (later replaced with the weaker Thorgrim for some reason), would not be freed from the cliff, as you could ignore the guard at 94.30.1. And yes, the guard at 87.131.0, who demanded 90 Archangels, 100 Ancient Beasts, and 1400 Master Djinns, will be sorely missed on this map. This is something for the author to consider when working on version 1.4.

And what was the purpose of Sir Mullich, and why did he become Thorgrim? I never got to that point in the game.
But overall, I agree that the map was a bit rough, but even in that state, it was very challenging, and not every player could complete it.

Try to imagine how the map would play out if the boots didn't allow for quick movement to the green and/or brown areas (and other detours). After a long journey across the land portion of the map to the quest for gold bags with the main hero, we would enter the portal at 94.49.1 and, after defeating the mutated purple guardian at 94.30.1, send Sir Mullich to our rear. Of course, he would eventually be killed, but the impact of such an event would be significant. Especially for those who study maps in the editor and for whom there shouldn't be any surprises during gameplay.

Was losing 90 Archons at the Gate guarding the passage to 87.131.0 not too much? Where would you get more Archons for quests and passage to other locations afterward? For example, after opening the gate before the Colossus, I only had 74 Archons left, which means that if I had given away 90 at that gate, I simply wouldn't have had enough to open the gate before the last castle. I would have had to sit and accumulate Archons in the starting Castle for several months (with a growth of 2 per week) to then proceed to the Colossus. Or were there other places where you could get Archons?

UPD Although, it seems that if you play according to the author's intention, this map should be completed in about 20 months, and by that time, you probably would have accumulated the required number.

Okay, never mind, let's forget about this map. We've played it and moved on. If the author wants, he can refine it a bit. Some flaws were pointed out to him, and that's fine.

I checked my save files, and it's true that there's a shortage of archers towards the end. It would be good to provide them in sufficient quantities somewhere before the final stage.

It definitely would have been possible not to ban all these workarounds with the pipes, but simply adapt a few of them for passage, adding a couple of extra quests and rewards in similar locations. Ah well...

I should note that the snake-like paths are one of the most important elements of the author's unique style; without them, the overall "meme-worthiness" is significantly reduced. For example, on the map "Adventure Tunnels," the author really went all out in this regard.

Help me if you can! I started playing a REALLY cool map called "Leap Forward-BT". I played for the first week, which took about 7-8 hours. And now, when I finish my turn on the 7th day of the first week, the game freezes when it reaches the brown player; Wistan, in the far north of the overworld, reaches the water, tries to summon a ship, and the game freezes, but doesn't crash. I tried reloading it in other versions of Heroes 3, but the result is the same. Maybe if you load the attached save, simply advance to day 121, and then save the game back to day 121, it will help? Or is the problem more complex? Or what would you advise? It would be terribly long to replay. Notably, starting around day 2-3, I was fast-forwarding to days 8-9, and there were no crashes. This is the first time this has happened. I haven't modified the game, and everything has been working stably for years! I'm using Windows 10, by the way. UPDATE. I tried enabling gosolo from the first day. Now, on the 3rd day, the brown player, at the same point in the far north of the overworld, approached the water, presumably tried to cast something, and the game froze on the brown player's turn. Perhaps the problem is with summoning a ship for the event (and the event involves Azure Dragons)... I don't know. Is it possible to load the map and play as the computer (brown player) instead of playing as the red player, and play in the opposite direction? But I just don't have those technical skills. I'll also attach the initial map

kolotok, I removed the boat summoning trigger using the save editor, and the freezing issue was resolved. If this solution works for you, great. The hero's name with the corrupted font looks like this: ґєёзµДґ«Лµ 

kolotok, I removed the boat summoning through the save editor, and the freezing issue was resolved. If this solution works for you.

 

Of course, that will work! Yes, that hero is Wistan. Thank you for this solution. If possible, please provide a link to the save editor so that I can try it myself next time if the problem recurs. And please attach the save file.

Save editor + save.
But I suggest trying to remove the boat summon yourself, just in case, you never know =)

The bug, of course, is not a pleasant one. I previously tried summoning a boat via the shipyard onto an active attack event; the trick is that we can summon a boat this way through the shipyard, but not through a regular ship summon, and after boarding the boat, we don't activate the event even though we are standing on it, but it activates after we sail away. That is, it works on the same principle as Dimension Door onto an event; those who played Last Crusade might know what I mean. But the fact that AI attempts to summon a boat via magic lead to a crash is, of course, a significant issue.

Upd. Updated the link.