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That’s how we lost the Master. He showed **weakness**!
AstralLein
Posts from New era.
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It's not very clear why people are so critical of the map author, especially since he did everything correctly. Right now, only 3.5 people are playing Heroes 5. Those who wanted to have already played the original difficulty, and there probably won't be many people willing to torture themselves with a harder version.For me, it was very interesting to see how the author envisioned the final battles. It turned out that my ideas about how to win and with whom to win are completely different from what I saw. Some people here said that Isabel or Frida with paladins could easily defeat Kana. Let's see some evidence. The topic about the single-player map had a slightly different discussion.
Gerter
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It's not very clear why the map author is being so heavily criticized, especially since he did everything correctly. Currently, only 3.5 people are playing the fifth installment. Those who wanted to have already played the original difficulty, and there probably won't be many people who want to torture themselves with a new, harder version.For me, it was very interesting to see how the author himself envisions the title battles. It turned out that my ideas about how to win and with whom to win are completely different from what I saw. Some people here said that Isabel or Frida with paladins would easily defeat Kana; it would be interesting to see. The thread about the single-player map said something different.
Well, there really aren't many people playing the single-player mode, but the Multiplayer is experiencing an incredible surge in popularity; probably more people are playing it now than at any other time in the game's history, thanks to the introduction of lobbies. Regarding replays, I probably won't be able to find one for Isabel/Frida right now. I played with Faidaen not too long ago; the replays are below, single-player version, hero difficulty.
MasteR
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I've done some more work on the third map and am now completely satisfied with it.
Here's what I've added:
1) I blocked the AI's path to the shipyard (I thought I had already done this, but it turns out I hadn't).
2) Previously, it was possible for other heroes to reach Railag's Dungeon using a portal in the city – I closed this loophole, so this trick won't work anymore. However, along with this, I added a Dragon Utopia and a Mage Treasury to Railag's Dungeon as additional sources of experience, artifacts, and spells. I also added another arena.
3) One of the mechanics I implemented involves demons increasing their army size by a fixed percentage each turn when they attack a city (so, if a demon hesitates and doesn't want to attack, it means that its army is not yet strong enough, and you have a chance to defeat or weaken it before it gains a significant advantage). Previously, this percentage was fixed at 5% regardless of the difficulty level. Now, it depends on the difficulty level (1% - Recruit, 6% - Hero). I also added a compensation mechanism for the large difference in defense and attack stats between the city's defenders and the demons (if a demon's defense stat is much lower than the maximum attack stat of the player's heroes, and vice versa. The size of the compensation depends on the difficulty level).
4) I added notifications for the player about the "update" of the scripted Dragon Utopia and the Sunken Temple.
5) I added a time delay of a few days between the appearance of Ir-Ro-Bar and Ir-Kha-Bar, in case the former is not in a hurry to attack the city. However, I don't recommend waiting for the two demons to meet and one to transfer its army to the other.
6) I removed the Dark Elves from the reinforcements from the Free Cities; now, only Humans, Elves, Orcs, and Mages will appear (increasing the chance of getting more useful creatures). I also increased the number of creatures in the reinforcements. There is a chance that Phoenixes will also appear in the reinforcements. It is important to collect the reinforcements as soon as they appear because new ones will not appear until they are taken.
7) I increased the percentage penalty to the number of demon creatures for completing the catapult quest (previously, demons lost 35% of their army if the quest was completed; now, it's 40%).
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AstralLein
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When I was playing through it, I also kept getting caught at the beginning, but after a couple of restarts and thoroughly understanding what's what, I started to kite the enemy heroes quite easily. So it's possible, although not very easy, and it doesn't happen right away. And of course, you need to level up your mage. Although, I don't remember exactly how I did it.
MasteR
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Hello Master, I want to say that the first mission is impossible, or simply broken. I played it on Hero difficulty (as a fan of your maps). Briefly and in points: After exiting the Dungeon, you have a maximum of 4 days, and then you're dead, no matter what. When you exit the Dungeon, you have several options for where to go: at the top, there's nowhere to go (only to take the archer skeletons and clear the stable); to the left, there's a garrison and a teleport that leads to the center of the map, where there are 3 garrisons, which is a dead end. Yes, there's a portal there, but when you enter it, the Red player immediately kills you because he comes to the teleport from the other side, just a few meters away from you. The only option left is to go down. At the bottom, there are 2 portals. The portal that becomes unguarded when you approach it seems like a hint, but it's not. When you enter it, you die in the next turn, and it's a dead end. There's an exit from the Dungeon there (where the Red player is waiting for you when you just enter the portal), and there's a gate, but there's no key nearby. And behind you at that moment, the Blue player is already waiting. The second portal at the bottom leads to the quest item, and there's a portal there that leads to the left side of the map. When you enter it, you also die in the next turn because the Blue player is standing in the next turn on the road from the portal, and there's nowhere to run. Going back isn't an option either; the Red player is half a turn away from you. Conclusion: the portals at the start are not connected to each other, but no matter where you go, the enemy is always one or half a turn away from you. There's nowhere to run, there are 0 options. No matter where you go, one player is waiting for you at the destination, and the other is behind you. The starting location in the Dungeon heavily depends on random chance: in general, clearing it is easy, except for the golems. The trick is that you need to attack at the right moment. If they break into 2 groups, then it's okay; you can run around with two units, and it's fine. But if they break into 3 groups, then it's death and under-farming. I don't know, maybe I'll write a command to win and see what's in the second mission, but I won't even try the first mission, even on Warrior difficulty, for the reasons I mentioned above.
Good afternoon. The map concept hasn't changed since it was created; I've played it several times in tests. I can't describe the exact sequence of actions right now – it's been a long time, but there are definitely ways to complete it
MasteR
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Updated the campaign and re-uploaded the file.
Description of changes:
1) Changed the campaign name: "Change of Eras" -> "New Era".
2) Changed the name of the third mission: "Battle at the Celestial Gates" -> "Last Stand" (the old name was displayed incorrectly in the game menu).
3) Applied the visual changes that I made for the second campaign.
4) The campaign is now fully compatible with the first two campaigns, as well as with the original campaigns and scenarios.
5) In the first mission, I increased the interval for the appearance of AI heroes.
6) In the third mission, I refined the combat scripts and removed a bug that caused the combat scripts to not work during defense.
7) Other minor changes.
Description of changes:
1) Changed the campaign name: "Change of Eras" -> "New Era".
2) Changed the name of the third mission: "Battle at the Celestial Gates" -> "Last Stand" (the old name was displayed incorrectly in the game menu).
3) Applied the visual changes that I made for the second campaign.
4) The campaign is now fully compatible with the first two campaigns, as well as with the original campaigns and scenarios.
5) In the first mission, I increased the interval for the appearance of AI heroes.
6) In the third mission, I refined the combat scripts and removed a bug that caused the combat scripts to not work during defense.
7) Other minor changes.
MasteR
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I re-uploaded the campaign file; this time, the changes affected the second mission:
1) The starting location has been slightly improved.
2) After death, only one Necromancer hero returns to the tavern, and the number of times this can happen is limited.
3) The moment of betrayal now occurs later.
4) The size of the armies stationed in garrisons at key points in the plot has been significantly reduced.
MasteR
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I have rebalanced the Campaign. I simplified the Walkthrough on higher difficulty levels.
The new version is available for download via the links in the Campaign Links (new) section in the first post of the topic.. The old, more difficult version is also still available for download via the links in the Campaign Links (old) section.
Description of changes in the new version:
Third map:
1) Reduced stats, changed builds, artifacts, and spells for all demons.
2) The growth of demon armies on the surface begins with a delay, and the army growth rate has been reduced.
3) Fixed a possible bug in the Ir-Kha-Bar script.
4) Ir-Kha-Bar now belongs to the Orange player (this was done so that he does not transfer the army to Ir-Ro-Bar).
5) Fixed a bug with daylight on the map.
6) The guard of some objects on the surface and in the Dungeon has been weakened.
Fourth map:
1) The map design has been significantly changed.
2) Urgash has been weakened for scenarios where he is an opponent.
In the old version, nothing has changed.
Added 5 minutes ago
The old and new versions are incompatible with each other and should not be in the UserCampaighns folder at the same time.
Upd. Not relevant
Description of changes in the new version:
Third map:
1) Reduced stats, changed builds, artifacts, and spells for all demons.
2) The growth of demon armies on the surface begins with a delay, and the army growth rate has been reduced.
3) Fixed a possible bug in the Ir-Kha-Bar script.
4) Ir-Kha-Bar now belongs to the Orange player (this was done so that he does not transfer the army to Ir-Ro-Bar).
5) Fixed a bug with daylight on the map.
6) The guard of some objects on the surface and in the Dungeon has been weakened.
Fourth map:
1) The map design has been significantly changed.
2) Urgash has been weakened for scenarios where he is an opponent.
In the old version, nothing has changed.
Added 5 minutes ago
The old and new versions are incompatible with each other and should not be in the UserCampaighns folder at the same time.
Upd. Not relevant
MasteR
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Released the final update for the campaign.
Changes:
1) Removed the old version.
2) In the first mission:
- Fixed a bug that allowed players to obtain an artifact and resources without defeating the guards.
- Increased the reward for completing the quest with the prophet.
3) In the second mission:
- Reduced the number of Zoltán's revivals.
- Weakened the heroes' armies in the crypts.
4) In the third mission:
- Fixed the location of the Tome of Darkness on the map.
- Fixed the type and quantity of some monsters.
- Weakened Sigrif's build, reduced Sigrif's army.
- Increased the interval for enemy capture of garrisons, mines, and dwellings.
5) In the fourth mission:
- Unbanned the Vampirism spell (forgot that I had banned it; originally planned that the player would be able to learn it in battle with Sandro using a skill in education).
- Fixed a bug with the dolmens.
- When touching the portal, the hero now receives a full supply of movement points.
- Improved combat scripts, fixed a bug in the battle with Urgash.
- Updated information in the final scene.
Changes:
1) Removed the old version.
2) In the first mission:
- Fixed a bug that allowed players to obtain an artifact and resources without defeating the guards.
- Increased the reward for completing the quest with the prophet.
3) In the second mission:
- Reduced the number of Zoltán's revivals.
- Weakened the heroes' armies in the crypts.
4) In the third mission:
- Fixed the location of the Tome of Darkness on the map.
- Fixed the type and quantity of some monsters.
- Weakened Sigrif's build, reduced Sigrif's army.
- Increased the interval for enemy capture of garrisons, mines, and dwellings.
5) In the fourth mission:
- Unbanned the Vampirism spell (forgot that I had banned it; originally planned that the player would be able to learn it in battle with Sandro using a skill in education).
- Fixed a bug with the dolmens.
- When touching the portal, the hero now receives a full supply of movement points.
- Improved combat scripts, fixed a bug in the battle with Urgash.
- Updated information in the final scene.
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Re-uploaded the campaign file; this time, changes were made to the second mission:
1) The starting location has been slightly refined.
2) After death, only one Necromancer hero returns to the tavern and for a limited number of times.
3) The moment of betrayal now occurs later.
4) Armies stationed in garrisons at key plot points have been significantly reduced.
hi, I couldn't beat the second part in the previous version, something was broken there; even at the start, I was given two sawmills but no mine) I didn't download the latest version, I downloaded the version from this quote. Overall, everything is fine now—still as sweaty, but beatable. I'll list a few points from my Walkthrough that aren't quite clear.
1. I'll start with the heroes in the crypts: when I cleared the second crypt near the starting Castle (where the undead gear is), a message appeared saying the curse was lifted, but the quest wasn't completed and the debuffs didn't disappear (well, whatever, but still). I didn't touch 3 and 4; the army there is huge, it would have been a real struggle and I'd likely lose 90-95% of my army.
2. I didn't kill the mage stacks at all, even when I already had an army; there was no point in it—firstly, I'd lose a own solid chunk of my army anyway, and they were guarding useless artifacts. I also want to note that there are 7 or 8 huge stacks on the map guarding generic loot, like 2 legions of emerald dragons, a legion of titans, and such. Why have such stacks?
3. I still didn't get the point of the passage quest where you need to find a key in one of the pyramids on the water. What is it for? You can go around from the other side via the garrison. And there's no way to actually enter those pyramids.
4. Is Zoltan's spam supposed to be like that? I killed him 3 times, and he appeared on the next turn after his death with an army 10-15% larger.
The first heroes and the first Zoltan were strong; it took some real effort, but then it became easy once I had 120 liches and 300 ghosts—overall, I cleared almost the whole map with those two units. Then when I killed the 3rd spawn, there were no more undead heroes; I went back and took all the castles again, clearing the remaining neutral stacks along the way, accumulated 400 liches, 1200 ghosts, 200 death knights etc., and headed for the 3rd final castle without entering the garrison in the center of the map. I assumed there was an entrance to the Dungeon there and I'd have to fight the demon (red player), but I was wrong)
You really surprised me with the ending, when you go as Sigrif against a maxed-out Markel in my gear. Honestly, I've stopped the Walkthrough for now; at the moment, I have 0 ideas on how to kill him in my gear. Plus, he has Mind Control, even though I didn't have it when playing as him. Only one thought came to me: load a save before the castle and remove all gear and give it to another hero or sell it. Maybe you can suggest what to do with him? There's no counter for Mind Control. If these were living creatures, I could handle it somehow with a vampire, but here there's no chance. He has 500 liches with bows)) Chaos magic, as well as Sigrif's basic abilities, deal same pennies of damage with spellpower 33. By the way, Markel has 40% magic resistance)) In the dragon pyramid, I took the dragon helmet and dwarf boots, and also looted a ring, mantle, and dragon armor. That won't help me either. I decided not to kill the Elementals; it cost 30% of my army, and the pendant isn't worth it. And in the artifact shops, there was weak loot behind them (I went through just to see and decided they weren't worth killing). I earned 250k gold while heading to land; as I understand it, the gold was given for a mentor so I could change my build, but I didn't, and I think in this case the build won't change anything. They gave 500 sulfur, not sure why. Markel, by the way, rushes you immediately, so I don't even have time to collect perks on the map. And maybe any remaining gear that I hadn't picked up earlier)
Difficulty Hero, obviously) but I liked the map??
By the way, the cloak ignoring immunity that I was given at the start—or after the first crypt—just sat idle the whole game; I found no use for it anywhere. If I had Mind Control, I could have farmed large stacks and mages with it, but honestly, that's a mediocre idea)
Yes, I remember there is a library by the southern cape, but I simply didn't reach it; maybe Mind Control or Berserk was there, but it wasn't on my way. I wanted to finish as quickly as possible once I killed the main heroes, otherwise they probably would have buried me there)) and a legion of titans guards it anyway, so forget it)
Added after 18 minutes
hi, I couldn't beat the second part in the previous version, something was broken there; even at the start, I was given two sawmills but no mine) I didn't download the latest version, I downloaded the version from this quote. Overall, everything is fine now—still as sweaty, but beatable. I'll list a few points from my Walkthrough that aren't quite clear.
1. I'll start with the heroes in the crypts: when I cleared the second crypt near the starting Castle (where the undead gear is), a message appeared saying the curse was lifted, but the quest wasn't completed and the debuffs didn't disappear (well, whatever, but still). I didn't touch 3 and 4; the army there is huge, it would have been a real struggle and I'd likely lose 90-95% of my army.
2. I didn't kill the mage stacks at all, even when I already had an army; there was no point in it—firstly, I'd lose a own solid chunk of my army anyway, and they were guarding useless artifacts. I also want to note that there are 7 or 8 huge stacks on the map guarding generic loot, like 2 legions of emerald dragons, a legion of titans, and such. Why have such stacks?
3. I still didn't get the point of the passage quest where you need to find a key in one of the pyramids on the water. What is it for? You can go around from the other side via the garrison. And there's no way to actually enter those pyramids.
4. Is Zoltan's spam supposed to be like that? I killed him 3 times, and he appeared on the next turn after his death with an army 10-15% larger.
The first heroes and the first Zoltan were strong; it took some real effort, but then it became easy once I had 120 liches and 300 ghosts—overall, I cleared almost the whole map with those two units. Then when I killed the 3rd spawn, there were no more undead heroes; I went back and took all the castles again, clearing the remaining neutral stacks along the way, accumulated 400 liches, 1200 ghosts, 200 death knights etc., and headed for the 3rd final castle without entering the garrison in the center of the map. I assumed there was an entrance to the Dungeon there and I'd have to fight the demon (red player), but I was wrong)
You really surprised me with the ending, when you go as Sigrif against a maxed-out Markel in my gear. Honestly, I've stopped the Walkthrough for now; at the moment, I have 0 ideas on how to kill him in my gear. Plus, he has Mind Control, even though I didn't have it when playing as him. Only one thought came to me: load a save before the castle and remove all gear and give it to another hero or sell it. Maybe you can suggest what to do with him? There's no counter for Mind Control. If these were living creatures, I could handle it somehow with a vampire, but here there's no chance. He has 500 liches with bows)) Chaos magic, as well as Sigrif's basic abilities, deal same pennies of damage with spellpower 33. By the way, Markel has 40% magic resistance)) In the dragon pyramid, I took the dragon helmet and dwarf boots, and also looted a ring, mantle, and dragon armor. That won't help me either. I decided not to kill the Elementals; it cost 30% of my army, and the pendant isn't worth it. And in the artifact shops, there was weak loot behind them (I went through just to see and decided they weren't worth killing). I earned 250k gold while heading to land; as I understand it, the gold was given for a mentor so I could change my build, but I didn't, and I think in this case the build won't change anything. They gave 500 sulfur, not sure why. Markel, by the way, rushes you immediately, so I don't even have time to collect perks on the map. And maybe any remaining gear that I hadn't picked up earlier)
Difficulty Hero, obviously) but I liked the map??
By the way, the cloak ignoring immunity that I was given at the start—or after the first crypt—just sat idle the whole game; I found no use for it anywhere. If I had Mind Control, I could have farmed large stacks and mages with it, but honestly, that's a mediocre idea)
Yes, I remember there is a library by the southern cape, but I simply didn't reach it; maybe Mind Control or Berserk was there, but it wasn't on my way. I wanted to finish as quickly as possible once I killed the main heroes, otherwise they probably would have buried me there)) and a legion of titans guards it anyway, so forget it)
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I finally finished the second part. I removed leadership and logistics from the mentor and replaced them with darkness and defense, and then won with a counterattack, almost without any losses. Kudos for the video at the end! It's very well done!
But I still don't understand how to get to the lower pyramid; I ended up completing it without the key.
Gerter
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Played the first two maps as Markel on the latest version. I had completed them almost at release, about 4 years ago, so my impressions are practically brand new (and very positive).
There isn't much to say separately about the first one. Quickly reached bdp + bald guy; for schools—Darkness; through riddles, I collected spells from archliches and fought mainly with mass plague, and from the third week and after the prophet's quest, I added vampire necromancy. In 2 short months, I methodically gathered almost everything possible from the map and reached Rutger; the fight with him is quite tight, but my meat was comfortably enough to hold out while his army died of plague.
[spoiler=First mission, Rutger]
[/spoiler]
The second one is much more interesting. Initially, we have a very difficult setup—cannot hire additional necs; cannot build the capitol or Mage Guild above level 3 in the starting town; playing Darkness is almost useless since the main opponents are necs (yes, there's the cloak, but without accessible higher Darkness it's nearly useless); playing conditional elements is very unstable due to the curse. In the end, I decided to play as a ranged combatant with Summoning purely as a support school. For the first couple of weeks, I quite tediously cleared my start zone, mostly using minion skeletons. Reached full def, own shooting + got lucky catching log, raised almost 300 skeletons.
Tried to kill Gaspar in the crypt immediately; the army there was quite weak, but he simply smashed a third of my skeleton stack with a boulder and had hard raising + nothing to actually kill the same-stack units with, so I dodged that fight. From the third month, I switched mostly to vampire grades, fighting almost everything. Reached the witch, picking up an hp ring and green boots along the way. At the start of the sixth, Zoltan emerged from a portal with a very large army. I didn't dare fight him; instead, I moved all the army accumulated in the castle, went out to sea, and sailed toward the altar.
Completed the traitors quest and broke into the crypt with Ravenna, which was very close by. Lost all zombies and ghosts in this fight, but got a bunch of artifacts, including the staff of hell. On the next turn, I flew through a portal back to my start zone, collected upgrades, and fought Zoltan. Overall, I had a solid power advantage (skeletons with two hp rings, resilience, and a 10% hp buff), but he banned literally every spell on the first try + cast evasion, which countered my ranged build. Lost half the vampires, but at least saved the skeletons. Next turn, I killed Vlad, who was holed up in my starting castle, sacrificing the remaining vampires to save the shooters.
Brought some reinforcements and immediately Deidra emerged from a portal with an army far larger than Zoltan's. However, the dead girl was dangerous only on paper; in reality, she has only 40 mana, and I managed to shoot down her army in the castle virtually without losses. And after a couple more turns, I popped over to Gaspar's crypt; lost quite a bit, of course, but the second part of the curse was finally lifted.
[spoiler=Second mission, content of first two months]
[/spoiler]
Immediately moved toward the enemy cities, restoring the vampire population more or less along the way. Zoltan soon emerged from a portal again and chased me; I failed to take the bottom-left city because he immediately used Town Portal there, making it impossible to besiege. Reached the top-left city, picking up a claw on the way. Zoltan caught me there, but with the full arsenal of Summoning now available, he stood no chance; he was shot down similarly to Deidra. After a couple of days, I took his city as well.
Then I spent some time exploring the map and gathering buffs from it. Put together an archer set for my build, killed Lucretia (unpleasant fight) and Naadir (quite simple) in the crypts, and lifted the curse completely. From Lucretia's crypt, I returned to my start zone via portal, then went for a key to the Temple (the passage is, of course, extremely non-obvious + there is one moment that could be considered a bug, but more on that below). I had to spend some time hunting heroes that the AI sent from the last city, but overall, without much trouble, I finished off the remaining necs around the middle of the 4th month (I could have just gone straight in; I probably would have cleared the garrison a month earlier).
[spoiler=Endgame playing as Markel]
[/spoiler]
Switching to Sigrif. Killed the Dragon Utopia and the strait without losses, though 0 decent artifacts. At the mentor, I just dropped leadership into a character and went to catch Markel. The fight isn't the hardest; the main thing is to block the one-shotting liches and rush with all other troops before the old man can cast a bunch of phantoms. Then 2 turns on log and boots as Markel to the Temple to finish the mission.
[spoiler=Sigrif vs Markel and end of game]
[/spoiler]
Good maps; I had concerns about the second one regarding the nec vs nec concept, which usually turns into a super slog, but the mission is quite dynamic. It's only slightly annoying in its structure, as enemies from their main city have a one-way portal straight to our start zone. This could easily be solved with a mentor, but there's essentially no one to mentor since other necs cannot be hired.
Other things I'll note:
- The traitors quest. It would be better to highlight the witch on the map when giving the quest and the altar after talking to her. Otherwise, it's completely unclear where to go; I just checked the map with a script.
- The passage to the Temple. Extremely non-obvious because a) it doesn't light up with the cartographer (which, as I understand, is on the water for this purpose), b) it' same blocked until the quest is given, which gives the false impression that there is no passage at all (you can spot it with scouting/stealth of course, but the initial design is still questionable). On top of that, the only passage on the right is blocked by a ship—I checked the passage and Temple guards with a secondary hero, and as a result, the remaining ship from him blocks the passage completely; I had to remove it with a cheat (you can remove it by calling a ship of course, but I didn't really want to waste an extra week on that). In short, making a water passage in that spot would just be more logical and convenient for the player (imho).
[spoiler=Passage to the Temple]
[/spoiler]
There isn't much to say separately about the first one. Quickly reached bdp + bald guy; for schools—Darkness; through riddles, I collected spells from archliches and fought mainly with mass plague, and from the third week and after the prophet's quest, I added vampire necromancy. In 2 short months, I methodically gathered almost everything possible from the map and reached Rutger; the fight with him is quite tight, but my meat was comfortably enough to hold out while his army died of plague.
[spoiler=First mission, Rutger]
[/spoiler]
The second one is much more interesting. Initially, we have a very difficult setup—cannot hire additional necs; cannot build the capitol or Mage Guild above level 3 in the starting town; playing Darkness is almost useless since the main opponents are necs (yes, there's the cloak, but without accessible higher Darkness it's nearly useless); playing conditional elements is very unstable due to the curse. In the end, I decided to play as a ranged combatant with Summoning purely as a support school. For the first couple of weeks, I quite tediously cleared my start zone, mostly using minion skeletons. Reached full def, own shooting + got lucky catching log, raised almost 300 skeletons.
Tried to kill Gaspar in the crypt immediately; the army there was quite weak, but he simply smashed a third of my skeleton stack with a boulder and had hard raising + nothing to actually kill the same-stack units with, so I dodged that fight. From the third month, I switched mostly to vampire grades, fighting almost everything. Reached the witch, picking up an hp ring and green boots along the way. At the start of the sixth, Zoltan emerged from a portal with a very large army. I didn't dare fight him; instead, I moved all the army accumulated in the castle, went out to sea, and sailed toward the altar.
Completed the traitors quest and broke into the crypt with Ravenna, which was very close by. Lost all zombies and ghosts in this fight, but got a bunch of artifacts, including the staff of hell. On the next turn, I flew through a portal back to my start zone, collected upgrades, and fought Zoltan. Overall, I had a solid power advantage (skeletons with two hp rings, resilience, and a 10% hp buff), but he banned literally every spell on the first try + cast evasion, which countered my ranged build. Lost half the vampires, but at least saved the skeletons. Next turn, I killed Vlad, who was holed up in my starting castle, sacrificing the remaining vampires to save the shooters.
Brought some reinforcements and immediately Deidra emerged from a portal with an army far larger than Zoltan's. However, the dead girl was dangerous only on paper; in reality, she has only 40 mana, and I managed to shoot down her army in the castle virtually without losses. And after a couple more turns, I popped over to Gaspar's crypt; lost quite a bit, of course, but the second part of the curse was finally lifted.
[spoiler=Second mission, content of first two months]
[/spoiler]
Immediately moved toward the enemy cities, restoring the vampire population more or less along the way. Zoltan soon emerged from a portal again and chased me; I failed to take the bottom-left city because he immediately used Town Portal there, making it impossible to besiege. Reached the top-left city, picking up a claw on the way. Zoltan caught me there, but with the full arsenal of Summoning now available, he stood no chance; he was shot down similarly to Deidra. After a couple of days, I took his city as well.
Then I spent some time exploring the map and gathering buffs from it. Put together an archer set for my build, killed Lucretia (unpleasant fight) and Naadir (quite simple) in the crypts, and lifted the curse completely. From Lucretia's crypt, I returned to my start zone via portal, then went for a key to the Temple (the passage is, of course, extremely non-obvious + there is one moment that could be considered a bug, but more on that below). I had to spend some time hunting heroes that the AI sent from the last city, but overall, without much trouble, I finished off the remaining necs around the middle of the 4th month (I could have just gone straight in; I probably would have cleared the garrison a month earlier).
[spoiler=Endgame playing as Markel]
[/spoiler]
Switching to Sigrif. Killed the Dragon Utopia and the strait without losses, though 0 decent artifacts. At the mentor, I just dropped leadership into a character and went to catch Markel. The fight isn't the hardest; the main thing is to block the one-shotting liches and rush with all other troops before the old man can cast a bunch of phantoms. Then 2 turns on log and boots as Markel to the Temple to finish the mission.
[spoiler=Sigrif vs Markel and end of game]
[/spoiler]
Good maps; I had concerns about the second one regarding the nec vs nec concept, which usually turns into a super slog, but the mission is quite dynamic. It's only slightly annoying in its structure, as enemies from their main city have a one-way portal straight to our start zone. This could easily be solved with a mentor, but there's essentially no one to mentor since other necs cannot be hired.
Other things I'll note:
- The traitors quest. It would be better to highlight the witch on the map when giving the quest and the altar after talking to her. Otherwise, it's completely unclear where to go; I just checked the map with a script.
- The passage to the Temple. Extremely non-obvious because a) it doesn't light up with the cartographer (which, as I understand, is on the water for this purpose), b) it' same blocked until the quest is given, which gives the false impression that there is no passage at all (you can spot it with scouting/stealth of course, but the initial design is still questionable). On top of that, the only passage on the right is blocked by a ship—I checked the passage and Temple guards with a secondary hero, and as a result, the remaining ship from him blocks the passage completely; I had to remove it with a cheat (you can remove it by calling a ship of course, but I didn't really want to waste an extra week on that). In short, making a water passage in that spot would just be more logical and convenient for the player (imho).
[spoiler=Passage to the Temple]
[/spoiler]
MasteR
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Especially for those who like to complain that I came up with something absurd and it's almost impossible to complete, I decided to go through the final map again today and this time "record" the result in the form of screenshots and battle recordings. I completed the mission as Sandro on the first try and with a decent margin. I didn't reroll the layout, the artifacts weren't very good, I didn't specifically use vampirism in battle, I just leveled up normally and didn't make stupid mistakes during the battle. Both battles were also completed on the first try.
P.S.
There were indeed 3 flaws in this campaign in terms of difficulty.
First - this is the endless spawn of Necromancers in the second mission. This is very unpleasant and frustrating for the player; there was a tactic to complete it, but it was difficult and not obvious at all. I fixed this.
Second - Sigrif is too strong in the latest versions of the campaign. I agree, it was impossible to complete. I weakened Sigrif (removed his subordinate, the army was reduced by 2 times). It should be understood that for such a difficult map and such a late stage, there is a high probability of balancing either towards "very easy" or towards "very difficult". Initially, Sigrif was a very easy opponent. I tried to strengthen him, but I overdid it with increasing the army coefficient. During the simulation of the finale, I didn't see such a critical difference (there was an error in the simulation).
Third - in some "intermediate" versions of the fourth mission, Urgash was too strong (very high attack values combined with a massive destructive beam simply didn't give a chance in a battle with him). Again, initially Urgash was a rather easy opponent, so I decided to give him a massive destructive beam at the beginning. I didn't test this properly. I removed it.
In everything else, the campaign is 100% passable with any hero; I completed it myself many times (only later did I spoil some moments with edits). All that is required is to prepare properly for each boss and not make gross mistakes (for example, knowing that Askh and Urgash can spam phantoms, don't invest in cursed earth). No matter how well Nixan plays Heroes, he still sometimes makes gross mistakes, and you shouldn't form your opinion only based on his playthrough. Nevertheless, I am grateful to him for highlighting many problematic moments.
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