Posts from Demon invasion.

Yes, everything is correct; at the beginning of the battle, nothing happens at all. I thought it might be related to the fact that I had both the "Olden Era" and "Invasion" campaigns installed. For some reason, when they are both present, only "Invasion" is displayed. I couldn't complete the campaign playing as the Broken Kan, so I'll wait for an update.

A major update to the campaign has been implemented, and the file has been reloaded.

The goals that were pursued:

1) Revise the balance and implement the enemy strength calculation core, developed for the "Battle at the Celestial Gates" map. Make the difference in difficulty more noticeable when playing on low and high difficulty levels.
2) Improve the visuals.
3) Edit the story, fix errors in the dialogues.
4) Refactor all scripts to make them more efficient and stable.

What has been changed:

Globally:

1) A new icon has been added to the hero (the old one was liked, but it was not possible to redraw it properly to match the canon + it does not match the icon from the first campaign).
2) The campaign has been refined to be fully compatible with the first campaign and the original campaigns and scenarios*. It is currently incompatible with the third campaign; for stable operation, it should not be located in UserCampaigns along with TCoE.h5c until an update for the third campaign is released.
3) Non-standard heroes have been refined - icons and specializations have been changed. All demon heroes created for the "Battle at the Celestial Gates" map have been included in the campaign's storyline. There are a total of 12 non-standard heroes with unique specializations in the campaign.
4) The scripts have been completely reworked on all maps, and the balance has been improved.
5) On each map, the ability to activate "God Mode" has been added through the console using the command @GodMode_On(). It can be activated multiple times. The command gives all the player's heroes a large army and a supply of resources. This is for those who want to learn the story but don't want to spend a lot of time defeating neutrals and enemies.
6) The campaign name has been changed to "Demon Invasion". I liked the old name, but it was displayed incorrectly in the game menu.

* - only special spells have been refined from the original files (slightly enhanced).

In terms of maps:

Ice and Fire:

1) A check for calling the TalkBoxForPlayers function has been added. If it fails, a message appears to the player about an incorrect game version.
2) More pleasant starting bonuses.
3) Errors in scripts, minor errors on the map, and some dialogue scenes have been fixed.
4) The standard Inferno heroes have been replaced with heroes from the "Battle at the Celestial Gates" map. Now, in the first stage of the game, Sigrif fights Shadowmaster, Isklikt, Ir-Ro-Bar, and Ir-Kha-Bar. For this campaign, Shadowmaster and Isklikt have weakened specializations, and Ir-Ro-Bar and Ir-Kha-Bar have refined specializations.
5) The army calculation for the main Dwarf heroes has been changed, and their builds have been changed.
6) The starting Inferno castle in the first stage of the game can now be fully built without restrictions.
7) The stat reduction when completing the first stage of the game has been refined - a lower and upper limit has been added.
8) A hint has been added about the possibility of taking a quest from the titans.
9) The reward for finding Dwarf artifacts has been changed. Now, instead of receiving magic wands and magic scrolls, the hero learns all the spells of levels 4 and 5 that cannot be learned in cities.
10) Other fixes and improvements.

Rebirth:

1) The standard Inferno heroes have been replaced with heroes from the "Battle at the Celestial Gates" map; instead of four standard Inferno heroes in the lands of the Dwarves under the player's control, there are now three non-standard heroes - Pyrrh, Udun, and Kahn.
2) The army calculation for the Necromancer, Human heroes, and Faydaen has been changed.
3) The builds for Duncan, Faydaen, and Kha-Belekh have been changed.
4) The combat script for Kha-Belekh has been changed.
5) Sigrif no longer has the ability to summon creatures from castles, but the armies of the standard Inferno heroes in Shi'o have also been significantly weakened.
6) The "meat" in the Shi'o garrisons has been significantly reduced.
7) Errors in the script have been fixed.
8) A new specialization has been developed for Pyrrh, and the specialization for Kahn has been refined.
9) The timing of the appearance of Human heroes has been changed. Sigrif is no longer transferred to the lands of the Dwarves for support. The quest artifact, the Necklace of Dragon Teeth, can now be obtained by defeating one of the Human heroes.
10) Other fixes and improvements.

Archipelago of Pao:

1) The build for Grobok has been changed, and the army calculation for him has been changed.
2) The maximum number of heroes and the race of heroes have been limited for the Orcs.
3) When Orc castles are converted into Inferno castles, several creature buildings are automatically built in them.
4) Grobok does not appear in the tavern after death.
5) Errors in the scripts have been fixed.
6) Other fixes and improvements.

Invasion:

1) The visuals for Kahn, Elva, and Urkass have been changed. A new specialization has been developed for Elva, and the old specialization has been refined for Urkass.
2) A specialization has been developed for Kahn.
3) An additional Mage hero does not participate in the game.
4) The build for Duncan has been refined, and the army calculation for the main Human heroes has been changed.
5) The maximum number of heroes for hiring has been limited for Humans, and the race of heroes has been limited.
6) Errors in the scripts have been fixed.
7) Other fixes and improvements.

Dead Desert:

1) A non-standard hero, Astrid, is now used as the main Mage hero. A new specialization has been developed for Astrid.
2) The army calculation for Mages and Necromancers has been changed.
3) An additional Inferno outpost with level 4-7 creatures has been added near the volcanoes.
4) The maximum number of heroes for hiring has been limited for Mages, and the race of heroes has been limited.
5) Errors in the scripts have been fixed.
6) Other fixes and improvements.

!

I re-uploaded the campaign file because I forgot to add a fix for a bug that was discovered during one of the tests. If you have already started playing the campaign, it's okay; the fix only affects the second and fourth missions (without it, the Inferno hero specializations will not work if the heroes are in defense mode). After completing the first mission, you can load the new campaign file without losing your progress.

I quickly browsed through the maps; as they say, I now have plans for the weekend. Everything looks very beautiful, especially the new icons for Sigrif and Kan. Also, I've always wanted to play with the unique heroes that appear in "Celestial Gates." Thank you for updating my favorite campaign!

I wrote a huge review for a map, but it didn't save; the site updated...
In short, I liked everything very much. As for the oddities, after defeating the gnome camp, the mines are not captured during the transformation, but the gnomes still appear. In the "Invasion" map, after the second victory of the Orc, the game crashes on the third battle, regardless of who attacks, him or me.

I wrote a huge review about the map, but it didn't save; the site updated...
In short, I liked everything very much. The only strange thing is that after killing the gnome camp, the mines are not captured, but the gnomes still appear. In the Invasion map, after the 2nd victory of the Orcs, the game crashes on the 3rd battle, regardless of who attacks, him or me.

I'm glad you liked it. Did you manage to finish it, and did you find a way to solve the problem in the 4th mission? Maybe you have a save file from before that moment?

Regarding the second issue - yes, this is normal behavior. I noticed it and decided to leave it as is.

Played the first one in the updated version (hero, of course). Globally, I wouldn't say the game has changed seriously, but there are definitely things to note.

I didn't roll for stats; I started with what was given. The bases attacked normally (def, charms, cars, same as usual), but the perks were really bad — no bdp, no +2sp perk of any kind, and no progression for machines at all. Nevertheless, I cleared my entire territory reasonably well and by the end of the month, with a couple of mentors, put together a relatively working build.

Build

Moved toward blue. Broke through the orc block very easily, but almost the entire army fell at the necromancer's. However, I decided to attack him anyway since I checked that Shadowear was far from the city at that moment. By skipping a turn before the battle and abusing Path of War (including killing devils on the lib using a wall learned from wisdom), I took blue's city. Battle on the next turn — his army isn't very large, but there's a lot of resist and pits. I won exclusively because in one of the tries, the random resist (or rather, its absence) for the first devil strikes was on my side — though I survived with 4 dogs and a bunch of imps.

Shadowear

Chilled for a week in blue's lands, gathered some army and stats; meanwhile, the orange demon killed green. I headed through the upper pass but barely broke the elven block, then Ir-Kha-Bar emerged from below. Apparently, he lost a lot of army breaking through to me, so he died relatively without problem to what I had.

Ir-Kha-Bar

Thought about turning around and fleeing to yellow's empty castle, but almost immediately Isklikta emerged from above with a solid army. I could have run away from her, gathered stats, and checked spells in the remaining Mage Guilds, but I decided not to stall; I brought an army from the starting city, mentored Temple into "obslo" to get more stats when moving to the surface, and went to fight her. The battle was unpleasant, to say the least — lots of stats and Fire Protection; even with 20+ sp, devil strikes didn't penetrate it very well. However, this was the last underground battle and I could afford to lose everything. I lost the screenshot somewhere, unfortunately ( In the end, finished the underground on day 4 of week 8 with stats 23-3-21-21. After reset — 5-2-4-1.

Moving to Surface

The stats, of course, aren't very proportional to what they were, but considering what is available at respawn, this is enough to kill almost everything up until the transition to dwarves within the first 2 caravans (except for stacks on greaves and portal, of course). Before the arrival of the 3rd caravan, the game slows down a bit since there isn't enough strength to hit dwarven artifacts and garrisons, so you need to at least do the quests for boots/trident and build the 5th Mage Guild for the portal.
With the third caravan, the most active part of the surface begins — we hit the dwarves' artifacts and head toward Thor Hralle. In the absence of higher Temple spells, battles are quite difficult; they generally go like this: AOE + Earl's blindness, temptation for the elders; other dwarf stacks are dealt with via slow-haste, while the Earl stays blinded until he is beamed to 0, after which he dies in 1-2 hits. This way we reach Thor Hralle's garrison without losses and collect 3 out of 4 artifacts. Here Brand attacks with practically x2 stats compared to Sigrif — a long and difficult battle where you have to spend a lot of time setting up walls (and wisdom again) so that his insane dragons don't reach anyone. Losses here are unavoidable.

Battles before Hangvul

We skip a turn before Thor Hralle's garrison, run on full moves to the last dwarven artifact without making contact with Hangvul. We take the artifact and hit TP to Hrottar. We fight the TE army at the portal and hand in the quest for artifacts. The reward is now truly solid, and with all higher Temple spells, we are ready to fight Hangvul. I mentored a bit for this battle and met him in Hrottar. Despite an overwhelming advantage in one's "meat," the battle ends without losses — we destroy the catapult and tank damage until we drain all his mana, after which he can no longer oppose the controls on the charmer. We vampirize losses by subjugating a last stack and move forward.

Hangvul

Now any PvE (and even PvP with ordinary heroes) comes down to casting vamp on phoenixes; we take the 4th caravan and move quickly straight toward Wolfsten. I had to lose a week due to the wonderful portal system, which puts enemies almost immediately next to our castles (when approaching them, they of course hit TP to city, which is annoying). We immediately destroy Thor Mirdal's garrison and meet the dwarf king in Torbjorn. In theory, he is a serious enemy — almost immune to Temple, huge meat with 35 def and Absolute Protection, but overall, the battle strategy against him is similar to what happened with Hangvul. We break the catapult and absorb damage until we drain all his mana and his shooters run out of shots. Then his stacks are subjugated one by one and brought into the castle, where they are dealt with slowly and tediously by phoenixes on vamp. He didn't have much damage against my Sigrif either, and I could have raised everyone at the end, but essentially, the main thing is that the phoenixes survive; they are capable of single-handedly dismantling the dwarves remaining after Wolfsten's death (the main thing is to hit counterspell on divine madness). By the way, they each have one unit of harpooners instead of a dragon stack. Result — victory on day 4 of week 4 of month 6.

Wolfsten, refugees and finale

Thank you for providing such detailed feedback. Overall, did the changes improve or worsen the game?

This mission hasn't changed much, except that it's now more comfortable to navigate the surface. But the old versions of Hangwul (a Chaos faction hero with cooldown reduction) and Wolfenstein (without a Command Point) were more interesting as bosses. And the phoenixes are overpowered even in that number; perhaps it would be fairer to give devils in the same quantity.

Played the second one; the changes here are already quite noticeable.

A very suffocating start—all three heroes are dropped on the surface in a situation where almost nothing can be beaten from the get-go. Previously, there was at least an option to merge the entire army into one; now it's just tough. I went with a setup where Kan caught the orb on the second level, and Udun reached full log very quickly through finding (and brown boots dropped in a grave). Pyrrhus is some kind of completely unattractive hero; he should at least be given starting chaos since he has a special for spheres. There are also instances where his special bugs out and doesn't allow the battle to end. I encountered this when goblins from betrayal switched to my side—basically, the conditions under which a battle can remain in a state of disabled auto-completion should be checked.

Bug with Pyrrhus

After struggling through the first week, Kan finally reached some basic levels; his special is maximally effective in the early game. I started breaking through more or less, opened both passages from Ur-Hinokh, and by the end of the third week, reached Hrottar via the passage with wolves. I merged armies from two cities at Udun's location, and he began to beat almost everything. His special is completely broken, primarily because recreated units are placed at 0 ATB, making it very easy to call gates or block shooters. On the path of war, I moved quickly toward Thor Hralle; I was lucky enough to catch an orb as well, and as a result, on week 5, I merged armies from 3 castles and reached a pretty decent level of power. Nevertheless, the first human arriving at this timing caused huge problems—total superiority in one-on-one meat and stats, a very strong ballista, and it was impossible to bait him into a fight in the city. I barely pulled off the field battle with great difficulty and serious losses; without Udun's samey special, it would have been impossible to carry this. At least I saved all the dogs and almost full imps to keep pushing forward.

Benedict

Against this backdrop, Sigrif had it quite simple. Even though I couldn't assemble a particularly strong build, Vlad fell on the first attempt without any major problems.

Vlad

After the first human, Udun moved to the western part of the map, fought through to the two remaining cities and gathered armies from them. I leveled up solidly and found some artifacts, but Bertrand, arriving second, again caused a lot of problems. Once more, a ton of meat for the week 9 timing and once again a complete unwillingness to fight in the castle despite a large advantage. In terms of stats, at least this time everything was relatively even, and I managed to avoid critical losses in this battle, although it took quite a few tries. Again, I can hardly imagine how to beat this without Udun's special.

Bertrand

After this battle, I returned to the starting castles—there was a lot left that hadn't been cleared initially. But unexpectedly, the third human arrived literally 2.5 weeks later; I even had to replay saves. I over-leveled slightly, mentored Kan up to level 29, brought 80 pits to Hrottar and sent him to clear the northeast of the map. With Udun, I returned to Thor Hralle and fought Valeria; there was a lot of meat there, but my initiative advantage was already too huge (level 32) and victory was quite easy. After that, there was essentially nothing left for the demons on the surface—not a single human arrived until the final battles of the mission.

Valeria

Meanwhile, Sigrif's game continued to be quite easy. I took a couple of build artifacts in Shio, dumped the machines into Obrazlo and returned almost immediately after the ritual to fight the demons. Here is the most important change—whereas before everyone had a sea of meat there and it was completely unplayable without scholar abuses and summoning troops from the surface, now all three are comfortably killed by a chaos build.

Demons in Shio

Then I calmly cleared Shio completely, gathering all possible buffs. With the entire army accumulated during this time, I killed Kha-Beleh without any major problems. Well, the battle became significantly easier, primarily because there is only one stack of imps, and a summoned one at that, which allows for almost guaranteed control on OU. The meat was just enough; perhaps it would have been possible to fight earlier, but honestly, I had no desire to suffer.

Kha-Beleh

And the finale—two mountains of meat under a pile of resists, but for once we have something even more broken. While I had to spend two or three tries on Faidan, Duncan fell on the first attempt without any major problems. Victory.

Final battles

General impressions are mixed. Previously, the mission was VERY hard and suffocating; now it has become easier, of course, but it's not even close to being less suffocating.
An extremely difficult and random start on the surface, which is mostly carried by Udun's completely broken special. I still feel that the special should be implemented through moving existing stacks rather than creating new ones; this actually isn't very hard to do. On the other hand, a full rebalance of the surface would definitely be needed then.
The timings for the humans' arrival are not very clear. The first one arrives on week 5 and it is very difficult to be ready for this. Perhaps its design intends for the player to sacrifice some cities, but if you do that, you will likely lose three cities at once. The arrival of the third is also very strange—only 2.5 weeks after the second, as is the complete silence afterward. I don't know if it was intended or if something broke.
On the other hand, Sigrif's line has become very and very comfortable to complete.
Better than it was, in any case

I spent a lot of time working on the second map, but there's still room for improvement to make it less tedious. Thank you very much for the information.

Campaign updated.

Changes:

1) First mission:

- Reduced the number of dwarves that return to the tavern after death.
- Slightly reduced the stats of non-main dwarves.
- Fixed an error where fleeing dwarves received an army.

2) Second mission:

- Improved the starting areas and armies of the demons on the surface.
- Pyrrhus has been given the Chaos Magic skill and the Fire Lord perk.
- Adjusted the timing of the arrival of human heroes and their armies.
- Fixed a bug in Pyrrhus's combat script.

3) Fourth mission:

- Fixed an error with the number of battle mages in the mage towers.
- Urkrass and Elva are resurrected only once.
- Slightly adjusted the number of enemy armies.

4) Fifth mission:

- Changed the timing of the appearance of Necropolis heroes and their armies.

P.S.

This is most likely the final update, and, to the delight of many, it is the last thing I will do for the Heroes V universe (unless some critical bug appears in the campaigns, in which case I will fix it, and maybe I will find the desire to translate all the campaigns into English).
Contrary to popular belief, I never wanted to make players suffer and die on the maps (well, except for the very first versions of the maps in the first and second campaigns, and in scenarios like Uninvited Guests, which were created specifically for hardcore fans). There was also no goal to ban everything (spells, skills, etc.); each restriction was justified by the plot, the balance built in, and the balance of the following maps. In the latest versions, almost all restrictions have been removed in one way or another. But, of course, when bugs were found that completely broke the established balance (for example, the ability to take creatures from the garrison), I tried to fix them immediately. In many places, there were imbalances to the point where it was impossible to complete the map with a particular hero under certain circumstances, but I tried to eliminate them. I don't have any illusions about perfect balance - with such a volume of content and a multitude of variations in gameplay, it is impossible to achieve this.

Thank you all for the hours spent in my campaigns and for the constructive feedback you provided - you helped to develop them. Even if only a few people are playing the campaigns and scenarios of Heroes V now, I am glad that I found the strength to complete the work that I started 10 years ago when I was a student with completely different views on everything. Some scenarios remain with bugs and imbalances (like Uninvited Guests), but there is absolutely no desire to return to them.

It's time for a heroic retirement 🥳. Good luck and new victories to all ✌.

P.S.S.

I will say something banal, but still. Appreciate other people's work, even if it is far from ideal. There are very few people who generate content out of pure enthusiasm. Everyone will be happy to receive constructive feedback on their work (impressions, information about errors, ideas for improvement). But nitpicking about trifles, problems that are made up, or a complete lack of clear feedback will rather be a demotivating factor.

Unfortunately, after a certain well-known individual (or even two), the lack of desire to continue working on single-player content for Heroes 5 is more than understandable.

Updated the campaign.

Changes:

1) First mission:

- Reduced the number of dwarves that return to the tavern after death.
- Slightly reduced the stats of non-main dwarves.
- Fixed a bug where fleeing dwarves received an army.

2) Second mission:

- Improved the starting areas and armies of the demons on the surface.
- Pyrrhus has been given the Chaos Magic skill and the Fire Lord perk.
- Adjusted the timing of the arrival of human heroes and their armies.
- Fixed a bug in Pyrrhus's combat script.

3) Fourth mission:

- Fixed a bug with the number of combat mages in the mage towers.
- Urkrass and Elva are resurrected only once.
- Slightly adjusted the number of enemy armies.

4) Fifth mission:

- Changed the timing of the appearance of Necropolis heroes and their armies.

P.S.

This is most likely the final update, and, to the delight of many, it is the last thing I will do for the Heroes V universe (unless some critical bug appears in the campaigns, in which case I will fix it, and maybe I will find the desire to translate all the campaigns into English).
Contrary to popular belief, I never wanted to make players suffer and die on the maps (well, except for the very first versions of the maps in the first and second campaigns, and in scenarios like Uninvited Guests, which were created specifically for hardcore fans). There was also no goal to ban everything (spells, skills, etc.); each restriction was justified by the plot, the balance built in, and the balance of the following maps. In the latest versions, almost all restrictions have been lifted in one way or another. But, of course, when bugs were found that completely broke the established balance (for example, the ability to take creatures from the garrison), I tried to fix them immediately. In many places, there were imbalances that made it impossible to complete the map with a particular hero under certain circumstances, but I tried to eliminate them. I don't have any illusions about perfect balance - with such a volume of content and a large number of variations in gameplay, it is impossible to achieve this.

Thank you all for the hours spent in my campaigns and for the constructive feedback you provided - you helped to develop them. Even if only a few people are playing the campaigns and scenarios of Heroes V now, I am glad that I found the strength to complete the work that I started 10 years ago when I was still a student with completely different views on everything. Some scenarios remain with bugs and imbalances (like Uninvited Guests), but there is absolutely no desire to return to them.

It's time to retire from the Heroes world🥳. Good luck and new victories to all✌.

P.S.S.

I will say something banal, but still. Appreciate other people's work, even if it is far from ideal. There are very few people who generate content out of pure enthusiasm. Everyone will be happy to receive constructive feedback on their work (impressions, information about errors, ideas for improvement). But nitpicking about trifles, problems that are made up, or a complete lack of clear feedback will rather be a demotivating factor.

Good luck, bro. You have left a significant mark on this universe.

The Legend.
Thank you for all the content you've created; it's incredibly awesome, no matter what.
And hate is an inevitable phenomenon on the internet; people seem to find it easier to express some kind of subjective negativity than to even try to be constructive. It's easier to just ignore it all.