I returned to the maps and finally managed to complete the entire campaign; I hadn't played the previous ones, but I became interested in seeing them. In a nutshell, the visuals are very cool, the difficulty (hero) is quite reasonable for a blind run with *almost* no resets for the whole mission, and the gameplay is interesting and versatile enough. I won't attempt to rate the story because the full picture is slightly lost. (I assume these are spoilers, even if the maps aren't new.)
Going through the missions in order:
Escape - a very cool location with swordsmen, although I'm almost certain that players stronger than me could complete it without skipping days for the well, but since the map is passable this way too, it's playable. Conceptually, I didn't really like the portal network that you have to untangle in several circles, and having two heroes personally doesn't add any value to the map for me. In the end, around the third month, one of them ran into an artifact shop (81, 38) and got stuck until he was killed by the second one, who in turn stayed sitting in the shop. I don't know what they found there, but immediately after respawning, the first one rushed straight back to that same shop. In general, they sat there quietly waiting until I gathered an absurd number of skeletons and shot down Rutger. I can't say much about the difficulty; here I decided to play it safe and overkill him with a surplus. In the middle of the third month, chances for victory were slim, but his army growth turned out to be noticeably weaker than necromancy with an amulet and same-set mastery pendant. For the finale, I brought 1.7k bones and a hundred fire warriors in an archer set with a build from vanilla 1.0, although it was quite slow according to the timer. It's very likely that with machines in the first slot, Rutger could have been broken through immediately, but I've had enough impressions of the starting location for now that I have no desire to roll the save, so a leisurely completion of 516. I wish the quest for the Dragon Eye went into the main objectives, but conditionally-optional quests are apparently part of the author's design. I still didn't find the portal leading to the turquoise pillar; then again, I didn't really want to.
Renunciation - a very pleasant and dynamic map, although the level of playability depends heavily on the starting save (or player skill issue, depending on how you look at it). I rolled Hafiz in the tavern, got a fairly confident start thanks to a stack of gremlins and machines, took the first crypt (which can be visited as a normal one after the battle with the hero), met Daedra, waited for Zoltan in my Castle, took the second castle; overall, it turned out quite linear. I wasn't sure if any problems might arise, but honestly, at times I really wanted to just main Hafiz. In the end, Markel with machines confidently rolled across the entire map and picked up summoning toward the end. I want to ask: would the map be worse without the quest for Ashi's curse, which essentially just becomes a bit tedious, but since it's there, so be it. A small same remained after the conditionally-optional quest for the key in the Temple, but that was more due to build costs than an impenetrable garrison. In general, if you roll a good start and encounter dangerous heroes in castles, there will be no problems in subsequent battles, but with logistics, you either have to be very lucky or plan it very well. I reached the last castle on 243; a week later, I looked at the garrison with sadness and realized it was easier to go back for the key. Finished on 341 after a long journey to the water temple. Save of Markel's attack on Sigrif (
https://dropmefiles.com/rMdv1 )
Battle of the Heavenly Gates - the least player-friendly map: they give you seven heroes right away — why so many? —; depending on the starting save, there is a moderate/huge number of unmanageable battles, half of which are literally for nothing; a wall of text that isn't duplicated anywhere, though I wish it were; and then there's the mage hut for 20-30 eyes (honestly, a fully open map from 111 would be better). Three mains appeared quite quickly: Frida with native meat, fire protection, bdp, and empathy; Gotai with machines and empathy for any starting breakthroughs; and Zehir with fire warriors, who would eventually max out magical omniscience. By the end of the third week, Zehir and Frida had confidently cleared about 10 external dwellings, horses and angels were built with difficulty, and Gotai cleared whatever he saw inside garrisons. When the first demon arrived, I was still not ready on the first attempt, but after another conditionally-optional quest — which you can actually skip entirely; in my opinion, Faedan is of little use, as you can't assemble a stack of elves, so why spend moves scouting east? — and two stacks of gremlins, things went so well that Shadowear refused to attack the castle and ran, of course, to the shipyard. Probably in attempts to kill at least one of the losers — or maybe I just have a tendency toward the sea for all AI heroes — I don't know. In general, while he spent a week and a half running back and forth, his army grew to an absurd size, but fortunately, Arantir arrived as backup by that time, who then had to chase after this devil. With the acquisition of the fourth main, the game smoothly transitioned into Frida gathering stats and exp, training knights into monks for Isabelle, endless clearing of garrisons and external dwellings, and pathetic attempts to buy out those same external dwellings — there are a HUGE number of one-tile wide passages on the map, so caravans either get stuck at best or block the heroes' path at worst. The Necromancer was eventually defeated in an honest battle by the Avatar of Death and ghosts under bdp, although the fight dragged on until all mana was spent; Frida had already met the two brothers Deleb. The light-demon strongly surprised me — I imagined a "vile creature that loves to do all the dirty work with other people's hands" slightly differently, but in a very prolonged light-vs-light battle in the castle, Frida managed to prevail. Funny thing is, Isklikta seemed like the most honest of all demons and, aside from some mean Divine Retribution casts against 400 shooters/17 archs in failed attempts, was a quite interesting and pleasant battle. I first broke through Pyrrhus with Frida, then remembered about golems and decided to try — managed to break through with Zehir without much difficulty. Uduna, after some manipulations with randomness, was eventually defeated by Zehir in the castle as well, but Kan is something else entirely. 20+-5 initiative on all creatures, stats roughly 10 higher than Frida's, morale-luck 5-5, imps that can drain all of a hero's mana after the fountain before my units' first turn, and a full Book of Darkness. The morale and luck problem was solved when Kan refused to run to the Heavenly Gates, preferring to catch up with one of the heroes, so in the end he only arrived after Zehir took the castle. But the full Book of Darkness is a real incident. A full Book of Darkness, and there's no dispel on the map. I don't know if it's a cruel joke by randomness or the author, but same-removal is only available to Zehir and in the Book of Light. Until the Book of Light, I had to make do with battle mages and adepts, but even with it, it would have been preferable to free up the shield slot.
All this just so that after 10-15 minutes of manipulating randomness in the first round, a catapult broke one of the towers and didn't deal enough damage to the gates, after which it took a shot from half the adepts and successfully flew to pieces, leaving Kan's entire army sadly looking at the castle walls.
And just when it seemed that everything was over and the map had ended, it suddenly turns out that Railag is needed for the finale? Railag, whose usefulness, personally for me, ended with the starting army. In general, after another battle with Kan, I managed to bring Railag closer to the mentor to somehow prepare him for the fight with Sigrif. Fortunately, for a level 40 Railag, Sigrif turned out to be too easy.
Overall, I really liked the idea of the map, but the execution sometimes feels suffocating: practically useless micro in an already slightly stretched scenario; without knowledge of the map, completion is quite tedious; randomness can either mock you (for example, I got half a dwarf set from Isklikta that was exactly the same as what I already had. I found the shield after Kan in utopia just to gather gold for the mentor) or greatly simplify the run; and AI heroes, who would seem to just run for the castle, love to wander around the map and stifle you with micro.
But generally, there are more pluses, of course: many heroes to choose from — everyone will find one to their liking; atmospheric map structure, almost all bosses are memorable and interesting, yet there is no single "correct" way to complete it (Pyrrhus is just fire); the lighting change on the final bosses looks very cool. In general, if you know what the author wants from the player, the map is excellent.
Not much can be said about the final mission; I completed it with Urgas and Ashi, quite entertaining, but only for a couple of times.
In total, 341 days for all 4 missions, two of which were almost entirely based on timers. I'll probably redo the first mission sometime with the goal of staying under <300, and maybe cut 8-10 days from the second, but the result after a long break from Five is satisfying. Thank you for the masterly work.
At the beginning, I was a little confused... Sandro with Zoltan's special ability... no, I don't like the undead. That leaves Urgash on the center perk and Ashha with a questionable special ability. Probably, Ashha is the better choice... the initial video kind of hints at it. The "scope" of the mission is indeed impressive, but at least there's something to poke around with.
