Posts from Sacred Tree

I got confused with these resources. The ones the dwarf gives for money. I understand one resource, but I don't understand how many there are and what they are for. I had downed five glasses of Bairoteer by that point, though. I guess I wasn't thinking clearly.

"The Sacred Tree" is an interesting map with well-developed landscapes, unusual scripts, and new units, but it suffers from an unbalanced pace and feels drawn out in places. The plot seemed like a typical, not very original fan fiction based on Ashan, with a large number of long cutscenes and lore, so at some point, I started skipping the entire plot. The difficulty of the map seemed too easy; I would have liked it to be a little more challenging. The first half of the game is not difficult, but it is meditative; however, the part with the Dungeon seemed too boring and monotonous to me. I liked the scripts and quests, but I didn't like the cryptography puzzle at all. If the author writes to me in a private message how to solve it, I would be grateful. The landscape is excellent! I really liked the changes in elevation and the abundance of objects. Although it's a pity that the high level of detail in the landscape slows down the computer . New units are good, but I didn't quite understand their purpose. Manticores are the same as in the original, only slightly stronger, and the necro-spiders only helped me in the early stages. Bone dragons are secret units that join your army after you defeat them; I have no questions about them. Light and darkness elementals are like furies, but you can't vampirize from them, which creates some difficulties in battles, which is not bad.
In summary, the map is good, but a bit drawn out, the plot is for those who like Ashan, and the quest development is excellent - it is perfect for beginners. My rating is 7.5/10

A new version of the map has been released (version 1.1.0, 08/31/2025).
The changes primarily focus on refining the first act of the map, although the second and third acts have also been slightly adjusted.

Key changes:
- The number of Kaspar's tent projectiles has been reduced to 5.
- The Tomes of Darkness and Summoning are now guarded by composite armies.
- All enemy heroes receive a small bonus to experience and stats after a certain amount of time.
- Orcish and Elven garrisons have been strengthened.
- The timing for the appearance of the Orc backup hero has been reduced.
- Degmund has been strengthened - his army and stats have been increased.
- The timing for increasing the Green Elf's growth has been slightly reduced.
- The Orange Elf now sends three heroes instead of two, and the timing for the appearance of these heroes has been reduced, and their armies have been slightly increased.
- The composition of Kmolag's army has been slightly changed.
- The three final armies have been slightly increased.
- A number of other minor changes have been made to the map.

The download link remains the same.

Question about the walkthrough

For the quest, you need to activate the lamp. I bought the materials from the dwarves, but I can't figure out what to do next. Can anyone help me?

The map is very WORTHY! The visuals are excellent, new units are always a good thing, there's a lot of text, and long cutscenes – that's the lore of this map. If someone doesn't like it, no one is stopping them from skipping and rushing, just go for it. Thank you very much for the map!

Well, what can I say... impressive work! I finished the scenario. It's truly epic. What I liked... there are many diverse battles, excellent map visuals, and despite all the scripts, it's very stable (I played it, even with a new profile, but with all my mods and without the author's music). The map is polished (I didn't encounter a single bugged area, all objects are in the correct places and work, all quests are completed correctly, and I noticed only one typo in all that text!). What I didn't like... I don't like playing as the undead, there's a lot of text (I mentioned it in message 52), the second hero (he helped a lot, but basically I carried a duplicate of him with me throughout the game in terms of stats, etc.). Basically, all my criticisms are just nitpicks because this is excellent work. I completed all the quests except for the mage in the tent (I don't like doing all sorts of nonsense that isn't related to the game), I just beat the mage, and then at the end I beat Cryogen, who he complained to (although he halved my troops with one spell, but that was his only spell). At the end, I teleported and got rid of the units that were no longer relevant.
I fought until I was exhausted. Thank you for the game - I haven't played such a high-quality game in a long time (I'll give it 5 stars, although all that text really stressed me out, and I agree with Sir Syddan in post 47).

I'm playing on Veteran difficulty, the author has done a great job, it's impressive, but I'm a little tired, I've been playing for 20 days) for 20-30 minutes at a time, but still. I'm already in the 6th month of the game, I'm afraid I've gotten too into it. I reached the demon and a message appeared saying that an elf was summoned to help. I defeated the Knight with considerable losses. I wanted to know if the demon's army grows over time? It just beat me so badly, I don't remember how many nightmares he had, 150-200 at a time, which wiped out my 300 vampires. Basically, I couldn't even take a turn because I had 2 rings on initiative.
I was planning to go get reinforcements in the Castle, there's a 2-month growth there, I think I can manage. And after the demon, is there much more gameplay? Because despite how cool the map is, I'm getting tired of the game.
P.S. - I've been stuck on the riddle for the second hour. I just want to finish the map because of it. Even ChatGPT and DeepSeek have given up.
Okay, we got the letters Z, O, P, V from the cipher. - if Z, O, P have numerical values, then there is no such value for V. I tried all the numbers instead of V from 0 to 10. Nothing worked.

The second option, if Z is earth, O is fire, then P is something unclear. It's either air or water. It's nonsense. I tried that too. I tried the cipher 4-7-9-8, I tried the cipher 7,9,8,4. Nothing worked. After that, I looked at the text document with the hint. It's obvious anyway and doesn't help in solving the riddle at all. I'm just stumped.

Thank you for the walkthrough and your feedback! 
The Mage's Puzzle is a way to introduce something new to the map – and it offers the player a different kind of challenge, distinct from the game's core mechanics. I'm glad you enjoyed the scenario, and of course, that the scripts worked stably.

Added 9 minutes later

The Demon's army, just like the Knight's and the Shantiarian Priest's, doesn't grow over time for lore reasons. In the second act, you need to collect the components for the ritual; if the Demon seems too strong right now, you can focus on finding the other parts. If you leave K'molog for the end, he should be manageable by then. Regarding the timing – it always varies from player to player, but overall, if you're in the sixth month of the second act, that sounds quite normal.