Posts from The Price of Love

Where is Lorik located on the map before he appears? I can’t find him in the editor.

Where is Lorik on the map before he appears? I can't find him in the editor.

He is in the player's reserve. He doesn't physically appear on the map until he is summoned.

Understood...

I understand...

Actually, even a Necromancer in the Dungeon isn't very useful. I managed to complete Vessel's Path, for example, without a physical copy. But back then, during the days of the forum, I wasn't very knowledgeable.

I started playing this map. The author deserves the HIGHEST praise for the graphics, design, and many other aspects. It's all the more disappointing that there are errors, which, in my opinion, are typical for many interesting maps from this forum. So, let's go through it in order.

Assuming I haven't made any mistakes (on the third week, a Castle is captured, by the fourth week, almost the entire territory is cleared, the hero is leveled up, and there are practically no losses in the army), in the very first days, an incredibly strong Green faction appears with a well-developed Dark faction and a Berserker, which can't be dealt with (there are no corresponding spells in two Castles). It's even impossible to defend the Castle. The Forgetfulness spell cast on the archers also can't be removed. On top of that, at the same time (the 1st day of the second month), Jessica appears with a vastly superior army.
1) So, the map is simply unbalanced. And it's severely unbalanced.
2) Furthermore, a well-designed map should either contain hints within itself (for example, beautiful dialogues should not just be for show but should talk about winning and necessary development paths for the main hero and necessary actions) or the map should ALWAYS be passable by the main hero (assuming the player doesn't make mistakes, of course) regardless of the AI's setup. Instead, you have to read the forum thread to find out what the author intended or look for hints. This should definitely not be the case. Everything should be within the map itself.
3) Point 2 also leads to a very large factor of randomness. The map should be enjoyable, not turn into a tedious cycle of reloads and autosaves to eliminate undesirable situations!!!
In summary: instead of a masterpiece that provides enjoyment (like "The Raven's Fall," for example), which this map should be, we have a map for typical bragging. (Like, "I strained myself and managed to do it, can you?") In my opinion, hints in the form of this forum thread, the prevailing factor of randomness, and the need for constant autosaves are mistakes and a faux pas. In the end, it's a very big disappointment, especially since the map could have potentially become one of the best, if not the best.

Hello, author. I just finished playing your map. The scenario was really good! It was interesting and not monotonous. I was playing on the easiest difficulty level, as I just started playing Heroes. I just didn't understand the ending: first, I chose to "spare the traitor," and on the way home, I was defeated by the Archangel. I replayed, and after the battle, the game simply told me that my heroes were dead and it was game over... What did I do wrong?

Hello, author. I just finished playing your map. The scenario was really good! It was interesting and not monotonous. I'm playing on the easiest difficulty level because I just started playing Heroes. I just didn't understand the ending: first, I chose to "spare the traitor," and on the way home, I was killed by the Archangel. I replayed, and after the battle, the game simply told me that my heroes were dead and it was game over... What did I do wrong?

For a good ending, you need to execute the traitor and own all three blue cities.

Added 1 minute ago
Nice answer. Someone asked that a year ago. Oh, what nostalgia, my old good maps for Heroes 5. And then I got hooked on Disciples and moved on.

UPDATE!

v2.0 (06/05/2022)
- Graphical update of the map: many visual flaws have been fixed, including the mountains
- Texts have been proofread: typos and some awkward phrases have been corrected
- The yellow player has been removed from the map: all of their role has been given to the green player
- When capturing the second Imperial city, the player receives a hint about achieving a good ending for the map
- When rebuilding a cursed city, a level 3 Mage Guild and a basic dwelling for the Than are built in it
- The number of Zoltan's Knowledge has been reduced
- Daedra's skills have been changed, and she has been given more spells from the Darkness school
- The changing images when selecting a map in the menu have been changed to match the design updates
- Elyssara's icon has been replaced, but the player won't see this

New working link to Google Drive in the topic header)

Added 4 minutes ago
This is how maps should be supported. So what if the last update was 3.5 years ago? It's never too late to improve the product!)

Hello!
I'm not a particularly skilled player, and I haven't played previous versions of the scenarios, so I'll share my impressions of how I completed it (of course, not on the first try) on Hero difficulty.
At the start, I managed to secure a defense with ranged units, which generally allowed me to advance effectively, and even take the Dwarf Outpost by the end of the second week, which I was quite pleased with.
Then, when the Necromancer appeared, there were some challenges, but I managed to overcome them... He was using Berserk on his wolves, and I was able to use that against him.
In my opinion, the starting location lacks at least one well and some kind of upgrade structure. There's only one well at the Castle on the right, and a flag, two near the Demons, and one near the right Castle; I think that's not enough.
I tried to clear everything before capturing the Castle, rebuilt the Castle, and gathered an army for the battle against that hateful JESSICA.
I gathered what seemed like a decent army, but I still think her stats were too high; I needed to try to defeat her, but that wasn't possible. I didn't come up with anything smarter, so I just kept gathering more troops.
I didn't add any upgrades to the rebuilt Castle, but it turned out there was even a third upgrade available, but I found out about that later.
I gathered as much patience as I could and assembled an army, thinking that now I would crush her... but she had a larger army growth rate, plus the computer was probably training her... and then this lady showed up with 500 horses... I was like, "Oh no," but more or less, I managed to defeat her.
After that, everything went smoothly, and I didn't encounter any problems... Except for one moment when I killed Jessica a couple of times, and she holed up in the Castle. I went into the dungeon, and she started running around the map, and the game started crashing every turn (no mods or anything). I thought, "Okay, I'll clear the dungeon later, after I finally kill her." And that's what I did; I cleared the Castle, and then another hero appeared, a strong one, but at that point, the Dwarf was already overpowered, so there were no problems.
The only problem was in the finale: you kill the boss, and then you get a defeat message. I didn't understand why. I thought that maybe when you approach the hero, another knight appears, and maybe that's the problem? I defeated him, and then I defeated the main boss, but I still got a defeat message.
I thought I needed to capture the last Castle and attack it, and I ignored the knight... And voila, I won! However, on the last dialogue, I made a quick save so I could watch the two different cutscenes, and overall, I'm happy with the map.

Thank you to the author for a great scenario! I'll attach screenshots of the battles with Jessica and the main boss, and replays, below... And I'll definitely play the Necromancer campaign!

Thanks for playing through it! I'm glad the map is still enjoyable today.

Jessica, yes, I sometimes jokingly call her my most challenging boss, XD. And before, she had a special ability to cast Divine Retribution after each cast of Light, and the AI cleverly (this wasn't intended) would buy an army and even from the third town.

Rebuilding the Necropolis town allows you to get an alternate upgrade, yes. Plus, it greatly boosts the number of Thanatos. I can't remember what the idea was behind the upgrade restrictions, but I guess I wanted to say something with it.

The variations in the ending are just a bit of showing off, which didn't go any further in my plans. In the latest update, I added a dialogue with a hint when capturing the second town of the blue AI, and before that, most people didn't answer on the forum and didn't complete the true ending. And even earlier, Kirana couldn't be bypassed, hehe.

Well, thanks again, and good luck with your adventures with Arantir! And soon, by the way, the third map in this series will be released. Thanks to Khottabych for the motivation and power.

Interesting map, and it's lore-friendly too! But Sigrif killed many dwarves, and there weren't that many of them to begin with compared to the orcs. Perhaps many dwarves were born in the 200 years (they do live a long time). But after a whole 200 years... This should be a campaign set in 1185 AD. But who am I to tell the master of his craft what to do? I'm just Urgash's servant.

Thank you for the kind words! My story is a free continuation of the game Dark Messiah of Might and Magic, a canonical epilogue to Ashan's story. And Sigrif is a key figure in the Master's campaigns, the continuation of which is not in sight, just like the Master himself. In my opinion, he has an alternative view of Ashan's history, or it's also a continuation, but mine is specifically a continuation of the original story, where the basis is the angels' bad nature, the ending where Sareth freed his father, the imagined failure of Raihlag in searching for Sareth, and the Unicorn Empire.

It would be great if there were heroes from Heroes of Might and Magic VI, such as Nagis, the Faceless One, and Varens, as well as Akihito and Sigrif.

The world, unfortunately, is far from perfect. But the faceless and the naked have nothing impossible about them.

I somehow feel like I need one more campaign about the Dungeon faction. When I launch the game, it crashes. And there's no point in using the editor. So I can't create a campaign. But I wanted to make one about the Dungeon faction.