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Hello everyone!
I decided to share some information about the map. I launched Heroes on a Mac M4 Pro via Windows 11 through Parallels (it works perfectly).
Next, the issue of corrupted saves arose. I added setvar gfx_texture_mip = 2 to the configs just in case, but I'm not sure if it had any effect. I played through the map twice on Warrior difficulty, the first time as a Necromancer, and the second time as an Elf. The Necromancer saves were corrupted, but for some reason, the Elf playthrough had no problems (I don't know if it depends on the race; someone complained that it crashes for the Necromancer). But I found a workaround that helped me with the saves. To do this, it's best to open the game in windowed mode and place the saves folder next to it: Documents/My Games/Heroes of Might and Magic V — Tribes of the East/Profiles/{Username}/Saves, where {Username} is your username.
When saving (I chose autosave every 3 days within the map), two things can happen: either the map will save normally, and the save size will be around 19000 to 21500 KB (from the beginning to the end of the playthrough), or the map will break, and the save size will be either around 3600 KB (incomplete save) or around 26000 KB (over-saved). If the save is corrupted, there's no point in continuing the game – every subsequent save becomes corrupted, so you need to exit the game, delete the corrupted save, and load the last valid save. Thus, the maximum you lose is 3 days of gameplay. As practice has shown, after such a restart, at least 3-4 subsequent saves work properly. This frequent restart didn't cause me any inconvenience, as turning off the game and reloading the map took me 10-15 seconds.
Regarding the plot, there were a few missing hints about which direction to go, and there are some obvious flaws. Here's a summary:
- The enemy starts to move exactly on the second month of the game (1 month, 4 weeks, 7 days). Until that time, every enemy hero stands inside the castle of their race. At the same time, the first three or four cities are "empty" – meaning there are no heroes there. These are Castle Ironfist (Human), Bootleg Bay (Barbarian), Free Haven (Light Elf), and Dragon's Lair (Necromancer). In reality, in 2 months, you can only capture the first two, which makes sense, as the first one gives a lot of quests (5 in total), and the second gives 1 quest and access to the Dungeon, where you can recruit level 2 creatures, which can be very important for some races.
- Some heroes don't want to leave their castles (perhaps the megaAI mod solves this problem, but I haven't installed it yet). This creates problems and sometimes advantages. For example, the Barbarian may not leave the Mist castle on the island, which makes it impossible to get to the Silver Helm Outpost catacombs, which contains the red key needed to access part of the Gharik's Forge dungeon and complete the corresponding quest. For the same reason, the Barbarian doesn't allow you to take and complete the "Northern Islands" quest to get a squad of 24 Manticores (they are needed so you don't have to fight the army on the way to the Wings of Angels). The enemy also often bugs out at Castle Ironfist, constantly running away from it and back into the castle, which makes it impossible to complete the quests in the town hall without defeating it.
- There is a flaw (but maybe I missed something) regarding the Snergle's Caverns quest from Castle Ironfist. Inside the dungeon, there is a blue guard, and the tent to which it belongs is in another dungeon, Snergle's Iron Mines, but access to the second dungeon is only opened after completing the first quest. Therefore, I had to "teleport" the guard using the Wings of Angels.
- You can get Phoenixes in the first week: just build a ship and get on it on the first day, then sail to the right (east), passing the cartographer. Phoenixes are essential for completing the game, as in one of the quests in the Supreme Temple of Baa, the main opponent will "delete" all your army before the battle, except for the Phoenixes.
- In one of the houses (near the Seraphim squad) near the starting castle, there is the artifact "Crown of the All-Seeing."
- In Gharik's Forge, behind the statue after the Mask of Justice, there is an artifact from the Sar-Isa collection.
- The main goal of the scenario boils down to two branches:
The first branch is to gain enough reputation to talk to the Oracle (through quests or through quests and the thieves' guild + correctly chosen week in the astrologer's tower), gain access to the Tomb of Varn dungeon near Dragonsand, get the yellow key, talk to the Oracle again, and go to the The Hive dungeon near Sweet Water House, where you will have to fight the "alien hero" Plate (100 Phoenixes, hundreds of Death Knights, thousands of Elementals). After that, depending on your reputation, you can reconcile with one of the sides and then kill the other side.
The second branch is to simply kill all the heroes.
- It's not profitable to kill all the heroes at once – if you kill two from one side, two new ones will be created in their place (with characteristics of 100 and an even larger army). If you are going to kill, kill the Barbarian (he has the brown key) and the Human (he has the turquoise key) to gain access to the Blade of Cold and Armageddon (these artifacts are not super decisive in themselves; they are just part of completing the map's tasks).
- Many of the strongest spells (subjugation, blindness, resurrection, antimagic, evasion, dragon rune, and various combat cries of higher levels, etc.) are all located in different dungeons. On a repeat playthrough, you can collect them first and then go to fight.
- Even if one of the heroes has an ultimate unique ability (like "true luck" or "absolute protection"), the second hero will probably be "spoiled" by having "incorrect" skills that won't allow them to also gain a unique ability, so a visit to the mentor is inevitable.
- In the very first quest, when freeing the fortress from goblins, you can't gain more than level 9, otherwise the goblins won't fight you.
- You can initially skip the "Academy" in the starting location and focus on clearing the starting location and/or scouting. If you answer all 7 questions correctly, the academy gives 3 free levels, which can be much more beneficial in the middle of the game than at the beginning.
- As I understand it, the "Mask of Justice" (it equalizes the basic characteristics of the enemy and your hero) gives a huge boost to a quick playthrough, and it would be logical to take it for yourself rather than give it to the town hall. As a penalty, your reputation will be lowered by only one level (I went from Glorious to Honourable).
- Don't skimp on visiting all the stables and lighthouses – these quests (the first is completed automatically, and the second is in the town hall) double your movement speed on the map, guaranteeing that no opponent will catch up to you.
- I don't quite understand the purpose of the thieves' guilds located on the surface and in the dungeons. If you capture them all, will it change anything?
That's it, in general. It's a pity that the ag forum was closed; there was a lot of useful information about this map there.
atlant108
