Posts from Across the seas, across the waves.

I restarted the map several times. I'm playing as Necromancer. Regarding the design, I'll say this: it's an island map, so it's difficult to come up with any design flourishes. The Necromancer set is assembled quickly, and then it becomes easier. The lack of the ability to build a shipyard in the castle is perplexing. The overlapping music is annoying. The idea of "fixing" the wolves is so-so. There's an overabundance of various artifacts. I explored a quarter of the map from above, and I already have four Tomes of Chaos. It's easy and fun to play. The main thing is to develop logistics and raiding in a timely manner. I'll refrain from giving a final rating until I complete the map. But for now, my emotions are positive. In fact, during the first playthrough, I had some aversion (I don't like island maps), but by the second playthrough, I was hooked. Respect to the author; you could make a larger, non-island map with Dungeon.

Added 2 hours 59 minutes ago
When you enter the mage zone, the music of wild Irish hobbits plays incessantly, which reminds me of the first season of "Purely English Murders" with Tom Barnaby

The criterion is simple: is it fun to play or not? Of course, this is a subjective feeling, but there are also objective aspects. For example, design, balance, and so on. And most importantly, do you want to replay the map or not? I've seen many interesting maps that I played once and forgot about, and there's no desire to return to them. This especially applies to maps by some well-known authors, who, in my opinion, suffer from misanthropy and ultimately encourage the so-called "console heroes" among players. Sometimes, authors forget that "Heroes" is primarily a strategy game, where you need a castle, enemies, and all that, and wandering around and mindless killing should be secondary. In general, the game should bring pleasure, not a headache. I wish all authors creative success.

I played through this scenario, Inferno, Biara, Hero difficulty.

Walkthrough

On the first day, I built a tavern and hired Nibros. On the next day, Waishan appeared there and immediately received Chaos from the dolmen... I decided to play as a Warlock with an army of demons . I developed quickly; Waishan had luck, Chaos, education, magic, and defense, but his skills weren't very good. On the fifth week, Hafiz came to my island; the danger was medium, but he had berserk and subjugation. He took 7 imps and played hit-and-run; he also attacked a garrison and lost some troops there. After that, I attacked Hafiz with my full army, and now he immediately fled. Soon, Valeria arrived; the danger was medium, but it was pointless to attack her; she had too many fast horses, angels, and griffins. Biara hid in the Sanctuary, Waishan stayed in the Castle, and Valeria didn't attack the city; she wandered around my island, then went out to sea and disappeared. After that, Waishan learned the portal to the city and went across the seas, across the waves to fight neutrals to gain experience. He found a mentor, took mentorship, and a lucky Wizard. He returned home, and Valeria came again. But Waishan had such an army that she ran to the shipyard. And then, suddenly, it was announced that the green player had lost, and Valeria simply disappeared. It was Biara's time! After training, she reached level 18 and had Darkness. In the guild, there was only berserk and unholy, so I went to the library and bought her vampirism. Then, I simply explored the map. There were enemy heroes in the sea, some even with large armies, but they were all killed without losses by archdevils with vampirism. I took Biara's Call of Urgash from the mentor; she also had an artifact of mastery. I captured a human city; there, I also bought the 22nd-level enemy hero, Talanar, from the mentor; I took plundering and Darkness for him. I found the Tear of Ashi, and Biara assembled a dragon set. The orange player has King Tolgar with 46 defense and a large army, but he was fighting against the blue player. And from some point on, he was already afraid of Biara (although it would be difficult to fight him due to stunning). I took advantage of the fact that he was on a ship and couldn't use the portal to the city; Talanar took his cities, and after 7 days, he lost. Well, and then it was very easy to finish off the blue player. I didn't keep track of the time; I just played and won in 357 days.

The map is well-designed, with interesting scripts; it was interesting to explore the map. In my case, it turned out to be a long game due to slow movement on the map (you can't take plundering with Call of Urgash), but I enjoyed the scenario.
Thank you very much for the map!

Unexpectedly, but I liked it (swimming isn't my thing). It's a good, meaty map for fighting. There are even simple quests. It's beautiful, I didn't encounter any bugs, which makes me doubt that this is the author's first work (it's all too polished). ). I have a small suggestion for the author: 31 Phoenixes as a reward is a bit too much (20 would be enough), otherwise, together with the exaggerated Manticores, you'll just rush through the map on autopilot like a tornado. There are also too many artifacts, but this compensates for the lack of funds; the map is designed to be played with mixed troops, so morale is key (although I didn't take Leadership, I compensated with artifacts). It's easy to play on General difficulty, but only for those who know the game. The game actually has an end (some people in the comments said it doesn't); it ends with the destruction of all opponents and the construction of the Tear in the Castle. I played with a purely random hero and faction, using the Light-Dark path, although you can also use the Summoning Dark/Light path (the spells here scale to the heavens, so my starting perk wasn't very useful). And the League through Chaos will be completely overpowered. Overall, very good! Thank you for the game!