Posts from Walkthroughs for custom maps.

Tell me how long it took the Chinese players to complete it.
I'm stuck on the isthmus at 19-4-7. I feel like I don't have enough troops; I can't break through Brissa (9+9 Titans, 6+6 Archons, and other minor units).
Or am I just being incredibly slow?

I don't remember how long it took them to complete it. There's a walkthrough of this map on a Chinese forum, and it describes the beginning of the game; it might have been a couple of months. After that, either the player gave up or decided not to make everyone wait for a 20-month review. :)
From what I saw in the walkthrough, they were much faster than me. But I started the map without detailed planning, so it didn't turn out very well.
As far as I remember, such huge stacks are defeated like this: clone on bears + morale on bears and their clone. Against Brissa and similar enemies, you should have something like 2-3 thousand bears, which means 4 attacks (if you have 2 morale boosts) of 2 thousand bears each, which is an 8 thousand-unit attack! It kills a lot, especially such large stacks as Titans. Also, in battles, it's better to equip everything for stats, ideally with the Alliance artifact. Cursed armor almost always prevents you from winning.

Also, as far as I remember, on the map, there's an opportunity to defeat the Azure Dragons in the north, take the Book of Air, and simply "fly over" a couple of difficult heroes. That's what I did.

Map:Blood Volcano

Author:wklhy

After a long break, I had a masochistic desire to play through Dark Man, and to warm up, I decided to first play through a simpler map by this author. I chose this scenario, especially since there were no reviews of it yet.

I also played through this map a year and a half ago, took a lot of screenshots, but never got around to writing a review... Final score: 5-2-3.
As with all other maps by the author wklhy, it's a "dynamic masterpiece," as I would call it :)

I have a couple of sketches from the playthrough left :)

Map: Darkman

Author: wklhy

You cannot fully consider yourself a "walker" of hard maps until you have the scalp of this monster. I planned to complete it for a long time—started, quit, started again—I think this is familiar to everyone who has played this scenario, but I finally closed the gestalt. In general, my walkthrough is similar to Marlo's, so I don't see the point in detailing it extensively; I'll describe only the key moments.

The Beginning.
Along Aine's line, I took 80k gold near the titans, which came in handy when buying artifacts from the merchant in the Tower and in general during the initial stage.
117 both towers are captured and Orrin is freed.
124 the Dragon is freed
127 Aine breaks through the dragons for the scroll of resurrection, while Orrin breaks the titans and captures the 3rd tower with an unbought growth.
141 the boss of the snow location, Ivor, is killed (one of the hardest fights at the start)
143 we enter the Barbarian location and level up Orrin with the Dragon, preparing Orrin's exit to Zidar/Pyrr's location
214 Orrin stands before the brown guard for passage into Zidar/Pyrr's zone
With the Dragon, we break through neutrals to get into the castle with the tavern

Along Luna's line, we proceed normally to Flax by the end of day 3, burning everyone in our path
114 Crag is freed, we level up both heroes and prepare to capture the Barbarian castles
121 both castles are captured, killing obstructing heroes along the way
125 Kyrr is freed
Crag levels up, obtains blindness and forgetfulness, and prepares to break through Brohild and visit the blue tent
141\142 Brohild is broken during the castle defense (an extremely RNG-dependent fight)
143 the blue tent is visited; Luna and Kyrr level up and collect creatures for the CL quest
Crag moves to the elven zone to meet Zidar

Along Pyrr's line, Zidar is freed on 112
117 we break the cerberi guarding the scientist with an explosion, as well as the garrison
126 we break the titans guarding the seer with Armageddon
133 Fafnir is broken (another extremely RNG-dependent fight)
134 the green tent is visited, Zidar takes the box with claws. Zidar breaks into the elven zone where he meets Crag; Pyrr stays to capture the boots of levitation and the blade of Armageddon, and also reaches the elven zone by the end of the first month

The Middle
212 one of the key kills on the map—Loinis; access to the castle with the tavern is obtained, as well as access to the quest for GP for the Dragon
The key event of the mid-game is completing the CL quest and collecting creatures from the quest pillars by 311. Luna collected nomads, thieves, and hobbits; Orrin collected mummies and trolls; Zidar collected peasants; Crag collected boars. On 234, the Dragon submits the creatures for CL. From the troops behind the pillars, I took everyone except the birds (absolute trash).
237 Gunnar level 108 is killed, the main problem of the mid-game. Managed to catch him right before the castle; Zidar burned all the shooters with Hithran, and Crag finished him off on the castle defense; one can breathe a bit now, the main thorn has been removed. Preparing to break Malekith and free Astral with literacy (key end-game goals)
312 the guard of the thunder titans is broken (the most RNG fight on the map), killed using Marlo's tactic, the Grail is dug up
314 Jeddit level 868 is killed (helped by the cloak of renunciation looted from Gervulf earlier)

The End

315 Malekith is killed, who was tricked previously by as many as 4 heroes per turn (Kyrr twice).
317 the event before Astral is broken; all our heroes learn a bunch of useful magic including GP and clone.
After breaking Astral, the game accelerates significantly, heroes are killed in bunches
317 Tazar is killed during the tower siege (5.7k rounds, not hard, but the longest fight), as well as Kalh with 3 large shooting stacks (scorpikors helped)
325 Myllich is killed and access to the castle with the Grail and stable is obtained
332 Gundulla falls in the field (used deaf cell, archdevils, phantom dragon, fairies, djinns), as well as Mutare Drake (previously cleared fairy tales and some titans by burning), access to the BS is open
334 the BS is taken and all remaining bosses no longer present such problems
335 Thorgrim is killed by Crag in the field with an anti-blindness amulet and 2 huge shooting stacks
336 Nimus is killed by Orrin and Solmir level 868 by Crag in the field (deaf cell helped, as in the fight with Gundulla)
337 Haart is killed by Orrin
341 Moandor with a huge army is killed by Crag
342 Xeron is killed (hypnosis of the remaining stack of balls and dispel, not the hardest battle, the main thing was to pick the right number of balls and attack with Caitlin beforehand so that Xeron swapped the liches and balls), the quest for CW is taken and the jailers and the last few heroes are finished.

Managed to finish the map quite quickly, though it can't be called a speedrun, of course. Impressions of the map are positive—an extremely well-thought-out and difficult map, except for small, non-critical moments. Probably the best dynamic map I've had the chance to complete.

Screenshots of some battles are attached

 

My impressions of the map are positive – it's a very well-designed and complex map, with only minor, non-critical flaws.

I completely agree that Dark Man is a very interesting and, most importantly, well-designed map, and not just some primitive run from corner to corner, as many believe. The author has certainly tried to make the game as difficult as possible for the player (and from the very first moves), but at the same time, he provides a lot of opportunities. There are overpowered artifacts like the Titan's Thunder or the Armageddon Blade, free troops, and the choice of who to play as: you can play as Orrin and the sorcerers; or as Crag and the elves; or you can divide the battles equally between all three main heroes. The player just needs to try to take advantage of these opportunities.

Yes, there are some minor flaws in the map, but they are not particularly critical (except for Gundula, who sometimes causes lag).

Regarding Maverick's walkthrough review. It's interesting to compare the timings and screenshots presented with what I had when I ran the map a second time as an experiment. I managed to do some things faster, and some things slower.

One interesting thing I can remember is how I killed Gunnar. On day 243, with Zydar, during the siege of the Castle. Honestly, putting a 108-level logistician in the Castle is quite a challenge. It went like this: on day 241, he landed near the Castle of Loenis. After that, over the course of two game days, I kept sending heroes to him to create a route to the Castle. In the end, I probably spent a total of five hours moving three heroes back and forth in front of Gunnar's nose in all sorts of combinations, so that he would finally reach the Castle on his last move. And he, the rascal, would go this way or that. Sometimes he would get in a boat, and sometimes he would run off in who knows what direction. I cursed, swore, and abandoned this stupid idea, and then returned to it, but in the end, I managed to lure him into the Castle and finish him off there.

I killed Jeddite on day 237 with Orrin. He retreats without any problems with a double Fast Forward. This allowed me to double Zydar's mana and, accordingly, kill Gunnar.

I killed Malekith almost two weeks later, but since I had almost all the enemies destroyed by that time (except for some bosses and minor units), and almost all the Castles captured, the rest of the game took only a week. Moreover, with the black ball, you can kill enemies in batches. For example, Crag, at level 341, cleared Moner, Haart, and Solmyr in one day.

And the screenshots are funny, showing how different the playthroughs are. Almost all the heroes shown in the screenshots had completely different armies in my game. Therefore, as I said, each playthrough of this map is unique in its own way, and this uniqueness is created not only by the player's actions but also by the actions of the computer.

Wings of heaven

Author: Stefan Kispalko (Darklord)

Download link: http://www.maps4heroes.com/heroes3/m...iculty=&sort=3

Good afternoon, thank you very much for sharing your walkthrough experience on this map.

Can anyone tell me if this map specifically requires SoD? When playing on HotA, I reached a dead end; there's no way forward anywhere, or am I missing something?

And is it possible to download SoD somewhere now?

Attachment 69261Attachment 69260

Good afternoon, thank you very much for sharing your walkthrough of this map.

Can anyone tell me if SoD is specifically required for this map? When I tried playing on HotA, I reached a dead end; there's no way forward, or am I missing something?

And is it possible to download SoD somewhere now?

Attachment 69261Attachment 69260

This is a SoD map; I think the obvious mistake was trying to play it on HotA. I use an excellent database for downloading Heroes maps; the site works perfectly, and I’ve never had any problems. Download it here: https://heroesportal.net/maps/search...%20of%20heaven. Download the game from the official source; it has a built-in launcher for both SoD and HotA. Choose what you need when launching the game: https://h3hota.com/ru/download

Lord Rings (Season)

So, I finally beat this map. This was my second attempt: the first was in 2021, when I got stuck on Josephine (and I actually reached her earlier than this time). Before this, the only Season map I had played was Way Home, where I cheated a lot (almost always, because some fights were simply unwinnable due to crashes) and never made it to the end. In general, all my Heroes gameplay before Way Home was just a tutorial for it, and Way Home itself was a tutorial for more difficult Chinese maps, including Lord Rings. Victory on day 342.

Despite the name, there is nothing here from Tolkien's world except the names of some heroes and some towns. There are many heroes with standard names but unnecessarily altered portraits. There is no storyline text or hints provided. You need to plan your own course of action.

Gameplay

We start with Sandro in the top-left corner and gradually advance across the map. Many battles require non-trivial tactics, and some are downright puzzles. You often need to use the terrain; there are many fights on imba tiles (on the starting snow location, they are conveniently marked by pits by the author). Some enemy heroes have only one or two spells in their spellbook, which only makes fights harder, as they won't waste time on useless casts but will immediately start using Armageddon and other unpleasant things. Also notable is the lack of strong destructive magic among town heroes, which provokes them to sally out during sieges, even if neither side has ranged units.

We play with four heroes: Sandro, Gundula (aka Crag), Orrin, and Dragon. Only the latter can be called a weakling; the rest regularly participate in full-scale battles. Stat upgrades on the map are very scarce, but there are quest huts where a specific hero can receive free experience and, occasionally, a Knowledge stat point. The key attacking stacks on the map are Wizards and upgraded Harpies. Many fights are tailored to their abilities, and the Wizards' casts are sometimes more of an additional problem than an advantage, as in the fight with Gird or the final battle with Sauron. Moreover, almost all offensive power comes from either joining neutrals or quest rewards; town growth provides only a very small portion. Particularly notable is the joining Wizard stack in the swamp, surrounded by quest pylons with timers. The later the player arrives there, the more Wizards they will have to give up. Thus, there is no point in sitting still and hoarding an army on this map; it assumes tempo-based gameplay. Also notable is the absence of ammo carts for most of the map: in some fights, you need to conserve shots.

Spells are given out very sparingly here. We don't get Slow and Resurrection right away, and Force Field and Clone only appear closer to the endgame. Until Dragon is freed (who, by the way, is the only one with the Scholar skill), we play without Town Portal. At the very end, Fly and Dimension Door are given to reach the final boss. Berserk, by the way, is also given before the finale, but it can't be used, unfortunately. All heroes will have Intelligence, so there's no severe mana shortage. Mana can only be doubled at one external Magic Well, which we reach closer to the late game. It was needed, however, only twice: in the fight with Jedite and in the fight with 4k Azure Dragons at the end. And I doubled Sandro's mana once more just in case. There is no Sphere of Vulnerability and there won't be.

As already mentioned, there's no need to sit and wait on this map; you must constantly advance. The computer doesn't sleep: its heroes attack us on timers. I, however, played relatively quickly and thus killed all such enemies before they emerged. But there are also computers that are triggered by us taking guard tents (a hero stands on cursed ground next to a tent behind a pylon that we need to open). This is where the imba pit tiles on the respawn come in handy. Losing towns is not particularly critical: we don't rely much on growth anyway, and in my game, three towns remained with the blue player at the end. However, losing the starting castles is highly undesirable: without them, we lose easy access to stables and consequently suffer a major mobility penalty. Speaking of mobility: all our heroes will have Logistics and Pathfinding; we can gradually find Boots of Speed for everyone, but the Strigan (Speed Boots) are only given in one copy and quite late. There are two taverns on the map: one external, one in the underground Necropolis; both are accessible closer to the end and are located behind a Swan Lake on cursed ground.

Timings

Early game

We start with Sandro and handle the initial fights with Behemoths and Vampires, then pick up 2 Angels. You could take 1 Archangel instead, but who would think of that when there's a fort on the hill nearby?

Day 114 - capturing the first castle

Day 115 - Crag is freed

Day 116 - capturing the second castle, fight with Sorsha defending the town

Day 117 - Sandro kills Nagas with Fire Wall and Archangels; Crag takes free 30k experience

Day 121 - fight with Neela defending the town

Day 125 - Marius is broken through, we get Slow

Day 127 - Lorelei is killed defending the town

Day 131 - from a quest we receive 400 upgraded Harpies and break through the Azure Dragons on an imba tile

After this, the Harpies become our main offensive force, and the game moves to the next stage, with Crag handling most fights due to his specialty

Mid game

Day 132 - Orrin is freed

Day 134 - Enian is killed using the Ballista

Day 135 - Sandro breaks through the red tent and gets Resurrection from a Scholar

Day 136 - Sandro breaks through Synca in a town; Crag gets Resurrection from a second Scholar

Day 137 - Crag breaks through Bogarus

Day 141 - Orrin kills Gunnisson and Ajit, who came to our respawn; meanwhile, Crag breaks through the Champions and picks up the Boots of Speed

Day 142 - Crag kills Balrog, who has 180 Hydras and 6k Magogs

Day 144 - Crag breaks through Ivor in his town

Day 146 - Dragon is freed

Day 147 - Crag breaks through Josephine in a town

Day 212 - Crag captures the underground Necropolis - an important strategic point, as there is a well right next to it for convenient mana recharge. Dragon learns Town Portal from a quest. Orrin picks up the Amulet of the Necromancer and free 100k experience

Day 213 - Crag breaks through a garrison with 1200 Magic Elementals

Day 214 - Orrin completes the quest for the Amulet of the Necromancer and receives 500 upgraded Harpies. We transfer them to Crag and break through Ignatius with Catapults. This fight was very hard to pull off for a long time; I had to bring "trash" growth from towns in the form of Archers and Crusaders for meat and extra offensive power. Crag then immediately breaks through Fiona in a town; Sandro picks up +8 Knowledge.

Day 215 - Sandro breaks through Crystal Dragons and learns Quicksand. Then Crag breaks through Efreeti and picks up the Mana Sphere - the last missing piece of the Wizard's Well. From this point on, the game becomes much more convenient, as we can regenerate all mana every day.

Day 216 - Dragon receives Frenzy as a reward for defeating Ignatius; Orrin breaks through Rust Dragons and picks up the Skull Helmet. Crag breaks through Rust Dragons and picks up the Dragon Scale Cloak.

Day 217 - Orrin takes the Citadel south of the respawn to gain access to Cyclopes. Dragon takes a dungeon in the top-left corner of the underworld that I had left untouched before.

Day 221 - Sandro passes 18 Crystal Dragons. Notably, exactly 1 remained after this, as I had sometimes lost them in battles before.

Day 223 - Crag passes an upgraded Cyclops and breaks through Yabarcus in his town

Day 224 - Sandro breaks through Dace using the Ballista. The fight lasted ~6 hours of real time; a macro was used. The Collar of Conjuring is picked up, and the Ring of the Magi is assembled; also, a Crystal Dragon is taken from an external dwelling (though I didn't even open the pylon for it in the end, lol). Dragon receives Anti-Magic as a reward for Dace, passes it to Orrin so he can break through Faerie Dragons and learn Forgetfulness.

Day 225 - Sandro breaks through a garrison with 1500 Red Dragons, after which Crag breaks through Theodorus in his town.

Day 226 - Sandro picks up free 480k experience and breaks through Gold Dragons, picking up the Sandals of the Saint. Meanwhile, Dragon heads to the fire land, picks up 600 Harpies, and clears a dungeon. Crag picks up free 500k experience and +5 Knowledge.

Day 227 - Orrin picks up free +5 Knowledge. Meanwhile, Dragon takes the green tent, triggering the emergence of Lord Haart and Zydar

Day 231 - Sandro breaks through Zydar (he has two spells - Clone and Armageddon, which he spams every turn) in an epic battle that lasted 2 hours of real time https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DLg5MJcr1iE&ab_channel=Lord.L. Now we have Armageddon's Blade and another Wizard's Well. Meanwhile, Orrin breaks through Griffin Conservatories on the Barbarian location and picks up Angels.

Day 234 - Crag breaks through Erdamon in a Conflux, then recharges and kills Lord Haart. The fight with the latter turned out to be surprisingly easy: he only has Anti-Magic, but for some reason, he doesn't cast it on the Dragons. Orrin picks up free 600k experience.

After this, almost all difficult fights will be handled by Orrin with Wizards; the late game begins

Late game

Day 235 - Orrin manages to pick up Wizards for free on the last day and immediately breaks through Stig with them. Then he doubles his mana, picks up a Sharpshooter (needed to access the next location), then breaks through Ghost Dragons and picks up the Vial of Dragon Blood. It is then passed down the chain to Crag for access to the Sanctuary with Hypnosis.

Day 236 - Orrin breaks through Yanowa, picks up 20 Faerie Dragons and the Thunder Helmet. From Yanowa, by the way, the Unicorn Bowstring drops - the last missing component of the Sharpshooter's Bow. Meanwhile, Sandro picks up a Vial for +1 Mercury lying around in the swamp location, and Crag picks up free 100k experience near the Necropolis that he forgot to take earlier.

Day 237 - Dragon picks up the purple tent, thus releasing Lacus and Torgrim. Based on what I read in this thread, many preferred to immediately drive Torgrim into the water and dig in, but I didn't do that. Instead, I let him take a not-so-important Rampart and then head to the respawn.

Day 242 - Orrin fights a very difficult and RNG-heavy battle with Mephala, losing all Faerie Dragons, then recharges and breaks through Gird, opening access to the brown tent. Dragon picks up a Cape for +1 Crystal.

Day 244 - Orrin takes the southern Citadel; Kilgor, who lived there, ran off somewhere.

Day 245 - Sandro buys a Beholder from an external dwelling, passes it to Crag so he can open a passage to another dungeon. Now we have access to the only tavern on the map, although it won't be needed for a long time (and it's probably possible to complete the game without hiring heroes). Orrin kills Lacus, then recharges and sits in a town to fight Kilgor

Day 246 - Orrin breaks through Mutare Drake and picks up Force Field; Crag breaks through Rust Dragons guarding a Ring for +1 Sulfur

Day 247 - Orrin breaks through Azure Dragons guarding the entrance to a dungeon in the top-right corner, allowing Dragon to pick up the Strigan (Speed Boots), complete the quest to kill Lacus, and receive Clone. Then Orrin charges his mana, retrains Clone, and stands on an imba tile to fight Torgrim there. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QUCk2YVPUfo&ab_channel=Lord.L. Meanwhile, Crag breaks through Azure Dragons guarding the passage to Moandor's location to provoke him into attacking.

Day 311 - Orrin breaks through Nazgul (a hero with 900 Ancient Behemoths and 11k Liches) and picks up the Helm of Heavenly Enlightenment. Then Crag takes a dungeon, teleports to the Citadel, and kills Moandor defending the town

Day 312 - Sandro breaks through Gold Dragons guarding the external War Machine Factory and buys the first Ammo Cart of the entire playthrough (though it won't be needed for a long time)

Day 313 - Orrin breaks through Korbac in a town; Dragon takes the now almost unguarded Necropolis in the holy lands. Meanwhile, Crag picks up the Shield of the Dying Dead, and we can now assemble the AotD (but honestly, it's not needed: it wasn't useful even once)

Day 314 - Sandro breaks through Crystal Dragons guarding a Ring for +1 Dragonglass. Now we can assemble the Cornucopia

Day 315 - Crag completes the quest for the Cornucopia and receives 200 Wizards as a reward. Meanwhile, Dragon, using Harpies (approximately 400 lost), breaks through the Water Cartographer. Also on this day, Tamika emerges, but I ignored her until the end of the playthrough, as she for some reason didn't take towns but headed towards the dungeons. I did the same with Torgrim, who returned a bit later.

Now the path to the final dungeon is open. What follows are fights with the map's main bosses using Force Field, Clone, and soon Titan's Lightning Bolt as well.

End game

Day 323 - Orrin, with doubled mana, breaks through Jedite in a town. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ke6IFYM7jGM&ab_channel=Lord.L. Undoubtedly the hardest and most RNG-dependent fight on the map; it took a huge amount of IRL time and probably 1000+ attempts. Although those who don't want to suffer as much can try to hire additional heroes to trap.

Day 324 - we pick up Cuirass and Gladius; assemble the TT

Day 326 - Sandro breaks through the Wizard King with 450 Crystal Dragons and 11k Liches https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=51aIEJZUX08&ab_channel=Lord.L. It seemed like this would be a terrifying RNG fest worse than Jedite (and there was even one almost winning attempt), but then I found out that the Pendant of Lightning doesn't protect against Titan's Lightning Bolt. I wonder how this fight is intended to be completed by the author, because both my methods and what I later saw in other playthroughs look pretty cheesy.

Day 331 - Orrin traps Tazar with Armageddons. I could have killed him immediately with Sandro, but then the Dragons exit the town on the tactical setup, and I couldn't figure out what to do about that.

Day 332 - Crag breaks through Malekith, drowning him in TT https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D6E1G6noDDA&ab_channel=Lord.L. All Harpies are lost (which could have been avoided by doubling mana), but they aren't needed further. We receive the Dragon Language Tongue and assemble the Mod. On the same day, Orrin killed Gunnar in defense: the fight with him turned out to be surprisingly easy, so I didn't even bother recording it, although I initially intended to.

Day 335 - Sandro breaks through 4k Faerie Dragons, picks up the Sword of Justice and an Azure Dragon from an external dwelling.

Day 336 - Crag finishes off Tajar, again with Armageddons.

Day 337 - Orrin breaks through 4k Azure Dragons and picks up the Angelic Armor. We assemble the Alliance, pick up the black tent; Orrin breaks through a garrison of 8k Faerie Dragons

Day 341 - Sandro digs up the Grail; Crag takes it to the Conflux so Orrin can learn Fly and Dimension Door

Day 342 - final fight of Orrin vs Sauron https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6x8VwY1y ... l=Lord.L.

I would rate this map 9.5/10, because the potential of the endgame is not fully realized. For example, Antimagic, AotD, and Berserk were never needed. And the fight with the Wizard King turned out somewhat awkward.

Map Title: Metamorphosis
Author: Lex
Version: ? (received it slightly earlier than the release on the portal in a private message as a tester; however, the final version is not much different from mine)

It's strange that there are no reviews on the portal for Dragon Slayer and, in fact, Metamorphosis (although I seem to be the second person to complete it =)) - in the last 1.5 years, these are the best maps in the CIS segment - each is made with a certain idea, beautifully drawn, and with an author's style. If DS was inspired by Way Home, then here Lex was clearly inspired by the maps of wlkhy and Darkman in particular: the map is very dynamic, you are constantly chased by computers with a large army, and you need to move forward, look for safe spots, and develop.

Branches

We start with 4 branches in different corners of the map - Christian, Orrin, Kreg/Zubin, Zidar/Elshar/Rashka.

Christian

Christian needs to take his two tents, give his army to Orrin, and... that's it?? I honestly don't understand why this branch even exists on the map and why it's done by Christian, and not, say, Elshar, who is very cramped in his branch. In principle, it's the simplest branch of all.

Orrin

Orrin has the most important tasks throughout the map - Orrin also needs to visit his tents, get a town portal, and then give everyone bass. Due to his own mistakes, the branch has become very tedious - I didn't break through the fort, I didn't upgrade the titans; because of this, I couldn't kill the hero from the first castle before he left, and I also experienced pain and suffering in the battle with Turis. And in general, it turned out that at the beginning of the game, my Orrin was somehow sluggish, which caused me serious problems in battles with barbarians and swamp creatures.

Kreg

The most interesting and fast-paced branch. You need to free Kreg as quickly as possible, get him the chests, manage to kill the opponents before they leave, and then rush to open the pillar leading to Ufretin.

Demonic Trio

We start with Rashka, and in the first month, you have to choose one main hero - Zidar or Elshar. I took Zidar and recommend it to everyone. After that, you need to run away from Gunnar, while killing two swamp creatures and looting Armageddon for Zidar.

Beginning of the Map

The first month on the map is VERY intense - you need to run forward with all your might to open important pillars; but at the same time, you can often find yourself in a situation where you are about to break through an enemy (Zidar and Tiva, Orrin and Saurug, Kreg and Alrak) and everything will be fine - but no, the current army is not enough, you need to run forward, loot bonuses, and return back, while running away from the mutants that are rushing out.

Mid-Game

After getting the town portal, the game turns into a coloring book - your heroes, in a chain, capture enemy cities/mines through the TP, and Orrin runs around the training grounds and kills those who can be killed. As you probably understood from the messages above, we have four "daddies" - Kreg, Orrin, Zidar, and Elshar. The usefulness of each depends on the upgrade (for example, my Zidar turned into a specialist in perverse battles because he was the only one who got tactics) and the style of play, but subjectively, Elshar is the most useless of all the heroes, and Kreg is in second to last place. Orrin is obviously the strongest because we will mainly fight with snipers.

There are no particularly interesting battles - almost all battles are heroes of morale and resistance, performed by Orrin with snipers and archangels behind a force field. Occasionally, you will be lucky enough to participate in classic Chinese sieges through elementals. There is no point in describing personal details, the map is too dynamic, and I think that there will simply be no two identical playthroughs.

End Game

In essence, it is no different from the mid-game, only the number of enemies with the icon, azure dragons, resistance, and a resistance set is starting to sincerely annoy.

Timings

Again, the map is very dynamic, so I will only describe the main points.

122-124 - Kreg opens his pillar (day in, day out), Zidar kills Tiva and gets Armageddon,

126-127 - Orrin breaks through Korback and Merist, Kreg kills Arlak, Helo is freed

145-147 - Orrin gets the TP, Kirr opens his pillar

212 - Orrin beats Gunnar, the lower right corner of the map is cleared.

216. Orrin beats Mutaru and gets Glaydis, the Book of Water, and AotD at the same time

221. The last timed pillar to Vokial is opened.

334. The last enemies were defeated 7 days after losing the city, victory.

Bugs

1) Some computers have secondary skills generated randomly (I don't know if this is a bug or a feature), which makes some battles difficult if the computer gets ballistics.
2) Dessa does not always take the red tent at the respawn. In my case, he didn't do it, which means Yog and Deirmif don't leave their places. It's not critical, the map doesn't softlock, but because of this, you can loot 600 free snipers and avoid two battles (to be fair, they are not unique, and you will have about 10 such battles on the map).

3) In the city (20,32,0) there is a tavern, which the computer actively uses when capturing the city (it seems that this has already been fixed).

4) It seems that the battle with Stig should take place on cursed ground.

5) A strange structure around the ring of the diplomat - to get it, you need to give a lot of snipers or break through a powerful anti-magic garrison. Or kill the computer, which will calmly go through this garrison and get its ring.

Balance

For the second map in a row, Lex is having difficulty balancing the variety of battles - almost all enemies have similar armies, the same set of spells, the same set of artifacts (hello, Zanch and the resistance set), and you are sitting behind a force field. Also, I don't understand why the author persistently puts wizards in huts - there still won't be enough of them for a full stack. It is also unknown why Intey and Stig exist on the map.

There is also the standard problem with the balance of dynamic maps - the mixing of armies and artifacts, which means that some enemies turn into uber mutants (hello, Pepelin), and some into weaklings.

Rating

I would give it a 7/10 - a very interesting and exciting first month (the Kreg branch is 10/10 in general), but then the monotony of enemies (and the annoyance in the form of azure dragons and resistance) quickly gets boring; there are no special revelations in the combat part, there is no plot, but it is beautifully drawn, and it is really interesting to play, especially if you haven't tried playing dynamic maps before.

There's a certain pleasure in reading walkthroughs like these.

Regarding the March of Wanli map, which Ed recently played.
It's blatant cheating.
When a player feels that the author is unfairly taking away resources, they should just ruin that event on the map.
And I'm more than sure that changing the events on the pillars – supposedly because they make the map unplayable – is also unnecessary; Ed just didn't understand it.
It's a clear case of unprofessionalism.

What do you think of this, Elon Musk?

Wow, Rinsu must be feeling terrible.

Map name: Paragon Ultimate Edition
Author: Rince
Version: 3.0

Hooray, the first review of the new Paragon in this thread =) Disclaimer - I played the second Paragon a very long time ago, so some of my comparisons with it might be off.
Also, I played the map with long breaks, so some emotions from the first acts have already settled/faded.
First, I'll describe my impressions of the non-gameplay elements (artwork, story), and then move on to the gameplay.

Map Artwork

The very first emotion from nwctheone was... utter disappointment. After the second version, which was the most beautiful map of all I've ever played, I saw
the fifth map of the season: a feeling of empty space, a feeling that "it's kind of pretty, but somehow there's no soul in it." This impression was especially strong during
the first act, because the Sylvan Empire looks somewhat ridiculous (especially after the second version) - one Stonehelm, one tower by a puddle and the capital; that's it, this is an empire =)

However, after spending a very long time on the map (I was starting to think that the third Paragon could do what Metataxer did to me - it took me more real-time than in-game time to complete the real-time Taxer; but that fortunately didn't happen, but be prepared that the third Paragon requires a ton of time.)
I changed my opinion to the opposite - the map is very, very beautiful (and definitely takes the title of the most beautiful map from the second Paragon), everything is harmonious and your eyes don't get irritated from constantly examining the map during analysis.
Incredibly cool! (but the empire still looks weak =)))

Story

Heavily changed compared to the second part. It hooks you, it's interesting, excellent environment storytelling (azure dragons with Undead in the Master's Limit, azure dragons with Albadon),
however, it fades against the backdrop of the gameplay - after many hours of grinding in acts 3-4, you somehow forget who you are, where you are, and why you're even fighting =)
But this works both ways - sometimes the story is very organically woven into the gameplay (Mogreyn's wedding, for example).
However, the transition to act 7 is somewhat abrupt - for 6 acts we're building a giant empire and killing Ashwing, and then literally in two messages the mood changes to AAAA GRAVE CEMETERY NEED TO KILL NATHANIEL OR IT'S TOO LATE

Still, some things seemed strange to me (of course, most of them are explained by game conventions and the need to justify certain things in the gameplay and my inattentiveness, but that doesn't make them any less strange):
- Olwyn, for some reason, is persistently considered a hardened villain in all the texts, although in Paragon 3 Olwyn does exactly zero bad things.
- Haas's storyline is very strange - the guy drank for over 10 years, thinking his mother had died. Couldn't he have heard even a single rumor in 10 years that she was sitting in prison?
- The Archmage went from being a maximally pleasant rival in Paragon 2 (killing whom was a sin) to an incredibly egotistical, insufferable bore (not killing whom is a sin). In Paragon 3, there are too few pleasant characters; they could have kept the Archmage as a sweetheart.
- For some reason, Nyrel survives after the optional rebellion (while Olwyn, who is the main character's wife's brother, is killed for a similar action).
- The Archmage just up and fired his brilliant protégé (Geliard), simply because some Fafnir told him to?) The Archmage seems to be free from corporate thinking.
- Why didn't anyone care about the movement at Seroskal for centuries?
- Who is the Other, why did he create the Cursed People, and why is Geliard in such shock from this fact?
- How exactly did Nathaniel get to the Gardens of the One?
- Why is the Age of Dragons coming to an end if they don't die and can resurrect, like Vael?
- Why is Mogreyn called Stonehelm the First if Rialon Stonehelm existed?
- Why do some opponents (specifically, Seliana) have Archangels?

Gameplay

We've reached the good part. Rince divides the map into 7 parts/acts (the division is more story-based than gameplay-based):

Act 1: mostly fighting neutrals, Resurrection is only obtained after breaking through Fordragon
Act 2: Mogreyn goes to Ghashrishran, Haas fights in Ghashrishran, Aelvin plays coloring book on the map with arriving undead; Town Portal unavailable
Act 3: Get all key heroes and the Town Portal spell. After the two corridor-like acts, maximally free. Objective: kill 4 grinding bosses and collect the artifacts of the ancestors.
Act 4: Need to deal with the Archmage
Act 5: Need to deal with Ashwing
Act 6: Finish dealing with the remnants of enemies
Act 7: Deal with Nathaniel

A bit more detail on each act:

Act 1
Corridor-like, for some reason considered tedious, but overall - everything is great (except for Clancy. Now THAT is tedious.) On day 243, my main hero broke through Fordragon.

Act 2
Incredibly cool and unconventional battles for Haas (the siege of Rglef is one of the toughest on the map, imho) are compensated for by the easiness of Mogreyn's branch - with resurrection, the march to Ashwing becomes a walk in the park.
On day 346, Vael gets Town Portal.

Act 3
This one is hard to rate. For about the first quarter of the act (act 3 is incredibly huge), despite having all the main heroes, they literally have nothing to do on the map:
- Haas can only fight neutrals (his best use is sending him to break through the underground to Lorelei) and in convenient setups due to low magic stats
- Oculina (hereinafter: Grandma) is not very combat-ready either until she visits all the grind spots
- Geliard (hereinafter: Gelik, Gelendvagen) appears only in the middle of the act and is also a semi-finished product

Result: Basically all gameplay for about the first quarter of the act turns into "Mogreyn kills everyone he can reach, Grandma and Gelik run around grind spots, and the support group plays coloring book."
There is an opinion that managing heroes in the third and fourth acts is very difficult; however, this is not the case. A casual, non-speedrun playthrough doesn't require any miracles,
lost moves/days are not critical for completion. In the conditional Metamorphosis by Lex, the logistics requirements are much stricter.

After a quarter of the act, Grandma gets leveled enough to become a full-fledged carry and is capable of making beautiful breakthroughs (freeing Eriana on day 434, Dusk Peak, Master's Limit) together
with ranged Mogreyn. (Haas gets nice breakthroughs against demons on the cursed land with harpies).

On day 435, I freed Geliard and he also starts running around grind spots.

You get really tired of the number of spawning heroes (many of which are samey), I don't know why there are so many of them.
I especially want to mention the situation with Seliana - it needs to be fixed so that Toga doesn't give her the Cloak of Denial; rolling back (the only significant rollback on the map) was unpleasant.

Also annoying is the task "figure out where to get enough experience for Aelvin", especially in the context that combat heroes also need to be leveled. (In the fourth act, this is even more of a hassle, experience has to be split 50/50 with the armor specialist)
From the battles in the act, I really want to highlight the siege of Nordrogon (top-2 siege in the game after Albadon), the Piraena branch (cool!), the branch with Inferno towns (cool!).
But the number of samey battles is off the charts, the management is tiresome. I finished the act on day 547. I left Grandma alive, of course; some of her breakthroughs touched my heart =)

Act 4

Here it's even worse - again samey spawning heroes, again sieges. At some point, the roach-hunting became so annoying that I skipped 2 weeks just like that, until Dandy and Alisana sat in their castles.
Geliard, having gained experience, turns into a Gelendvagen that we use to roll over 90% of the enemies in the act; the rest are basically relaxing. No particularly interesting battles, except for the first Archmage.
Edward, holed up in his castle, caused more problems than the nominal act bosses.

In this act, we have to make the main story choice. I chose sweetheart Olwyn purely for story reasons (I was especially won over by the argument "you can find money in many places, but me - I'm one of a kind (c)").
From a gameplay perspective, I think Hartstein is under-buffed (I was actually surprised that Rince plans to remove the bonuses from Hartstein, lol) - there's already tons of money, and a stack of Snipers is much stronger than the rabble we get in the Pandora's Box.
Especially considering that the AI evaluates the power of ranged stacks without accounting for possible Frenzy. The typical situation is bringing Efreets and Snipers to a siege with Geliard; the enemy shoots the Archangels and Snipers; we're left with a stack of Efreets, which gets Frenzy cast on it and rips apart an enemy stack.

Also, "Olwyn in act 7" >>> "useless Sphere of Vulnerability that can only be obtained in the last acts". In short, the dwarf should be buffed instead =)

The act ended on day 713. I didn't like it - it was just the overly dragged-out third act all over again.

Act 5
Here we finally get a breather without spawning roaches. Instead, we're suffocated by logistics and logistical puzzles in the vicinity of the Diamond Gates =).
I really liked the puzzle for the Legion Head. I liked the fight with Sigdriv (at least Haas got some use there))).
I didn't like the fight with Ashwing - my armor specialist didn't stack enough Perfection (because Geliard was running the show for the previous act and a half) and a fair line-up battle didn't work out; I had to abuse burns with Ghost Dragons.
I didn't like the confusing logistics around the Diamond Gates with the requirement to solve all puzzles before storming the spire - it just adds tedium.

Act 6
Excellent fight with Albadon and cool puzzles in the Rift (why there are 100500 Swan Lakes by the tower there is unclear).

But the spawning Maleveon perfectly illustrates all the problems of this map with one example:
- I'm sure he ended up on the map with the thought "oh, we can also show a high-level Resurrection specialist here!!! Damn, but he doesn't really fit anywhere, okay, let him be a wandering bum"
- he's yet another roach among thousands with no history
- no thought is needed for him
- just why is he needed here? To overload the map with even more content?

Act 7

Hooray, now we're being suffocated by logistics AND roaches at the same time =)
Instead of the key characters we killed in Paragon 2, no-names come to Tenegor for your head, 2 of whom are killed by Haas on imbalanced cells, and all the rest by turtling behind Force Field
(optionally - swept away by gigachad Olwyn).

The fight against Eranicus and the fight for Eranicus - cool!
The finale - cool!!! (Nahelik with ballistae is stronger than her master =))
The fights against the spawning bums (or fights with them in the Gardens) - not cool.
I finally finished on day 912.

Summary

In terms of difficulty - it turned out harder than any Season map, sometimes similar in difficulty to Taxer in some places.
Perhaps if I had played Paragon 3 first, it would have seemed harder to me than Metamorphosis; in both you have to sweat it out to the fullest.

Wanting to put everything, or almost everything, that heroes are capable of onto the map, Rince clearly overdid it - the map is overloaded with content,
and its diversity prevents focusing on any particular parts; in many places you feel the mapmaker's redundancy of what's happening.

Why is Last Crusade a brilliant map? Because Khazar was focused on logistical puzzles. (and it was also the first of its kind)
Why is Lord of Rings a brilliant map? Because Season was focused on battles. (and it was also the first of its kind)
Why is the second Paragon a brilliant map? Because Rince was focused on the story, not on creating a difficult map. (and it was also the first of its kind)

Is the third Paragon the most meticulously crafted map in existence? - definitely yes.
Did I like the third Paragon? - definitely yes, I will definitely replay it in a year with the opposite choices.
Is it the best map I've ever played? - definitely not.

9.5 perfect out of 10

Guys, I need help! In the Jedi story map, the hero simply refuses to enter the orange monolith entrance. The horse icon just doesn't "rear up," as it usually does... and because of this, the entire walkthrough is stalled... Also, the same thing happens with the Sword of Justice artifact: the artifact is right in front of me, but I can't pick it up. Has anyone encountered similar bugs? Please help!

I don't understand what's going on and why. Upload your save file to a cloud service, make it publicly accessible, and provide a link – I'll take a look. Just in case, I'll ask: are you playing this map in The Restoration of Erathia / The Shadow of Death, or perhaps in WOG or HOTA?