Posts from Ambassador

I completed this... unexpectedly challenging scenario for me on Hero difficulty.

Walkthrough

Lorenzo has a timed quest, so Varens collected gold from chests to speed up development. On the fourth day, Dugald attacked the garrison, and Varens won the autobattle. He agreed; he can't play that well manually . It's easy to gather 200 archers; two squads join on the map. On the 23rd day, Lorenzo defeated the workshop guards (losses: 2 land lords, 11 archers, 12 zealots, 2 adepts) and completed the quest. Varens took luck, leadership, defense, Darkness, and Light. In battles for Varens, I divided the archers into several squads to stun more often. In the first month, some battles were difficult, but with three fallen angels, everything became much easier. In the Dungeon, the first serious problem is the dwarf Helmar. The danger is medium, but it's impossible to defeat him without losses; it's also impossible to bypass him; he catches up. Through save loading, I found that if Varens ends his turn at (102, 18), the dwarf won't reach one square, and Varens can collect reinforcements (adepts, knights, and an angel) before the battle. I replayed this battle several times; in the end, the losses were 16 zealots, 6 griffins, 2 adepts, 5 horses, and 2 witches. After that, I quickly and easily captured the dwarf town, finding a magic temple with enchantment along the way. The quest requires defeating a large squad of black dragons that guard the mentor and the runic axe; I couldn't do that right away. While clearing the guard of the mana doubling stream, Ingvar arrived with a large army and antimagic; it's impossible to escape. Here, I used a computer quirk: in response to enchantment, antimagic immediately follows, but he doesn't rush to remove blindness. I divided the adepts into two squads, put on the Sar-Issa crown and robe, and managed to win without losses. There was nothing useful in the spellbook; throughout the game, Varens never learned either vampirism or berserk. I captured the outpost (immediately 4567 creatures), but now Karlie is blocking the path. Another battle in the field, another save loading; losses: 3 archers, 7 adepts, 1 horse. I received the dwarf boots from Karlie and gathered a full set. The dwarves are resurrected, but the battles with them have become easy. I returned to the squad of 258 black dragons and defeated them without losses (with two squads: 54 adepts and 7 angels), took trophies from the mentor: BDP, empathy, and storm wind. I unlocked and cleared the dwarf garrison. Against the undead at the portal (a legion of higher vampires, clouds of death knights, heralds, and phantom dragons), I placed one squad of adepts, enchanted the vampires with Sandro's cloak, and teleported them so that the other squads couldn't attack the adepts. I lost 5 adepts, and the mana ran out . Against Swei (she's in the castle, she has 168 lava dragons and other strong squads), I placed angels, archers, witches, and four squads of adepts. The angels kill everyone except the dragons, which don't move because 6 archer squads constantly stun them. I won this battle without losses. Next, I need to defeat Brand (he's in the castle; the battle is triggered by a script if you approach the portal). He has 50 defense, a dwarf set, vengeance, antimagic, and celestial shield. But the most unpleasant thing is the dwarf luck (Varens doesn't have the Sar-Issa staff) and the seal of light, which makes regeneration and resurrection very expensive. For this battle, I had to come up with a build. I left BDP and empathy. I took the Seal of Light against vengeance. I also remembered that the dark replenishment skill allows you to place a crystal and a wall of swords for 0 mana (I learned this in one of Remix's videos), so I decided to use it. Varens has a crystal; the wall is in the guild; I need to take wisdom. I also temporarily took education, put on artifacts for knowledge, visited the stream, replaced it with spellcasting, and also took secret advantage and immediately discarded it. In the end, Varens has 1000/17 mana . The battle with Brand is very long and very interesting; I won't describe it; there's a replay. And I was able to win without losses; it's possible! Now, Varens is running across the map to deliver the rune; Bertrand appears with high danger, but he's standing still. I increased the mana again (only to 780 this time), took the mind lord from the mentor instead of dark replenishment. I defeated Bertrand without losses, quickly killed the griffins and enchanted the angels, and resurrected everyone in the end. This battle is much easier than with Brand. The scenario was completed in 236 days. It could be faster if you know in advance that Bertrand is easy to defeat with any losses.

I liked the scenario; there are many interesting battles with enemy heroes and neutrals. Varens against Brand is my best battle of all time in Heroes!!! It's really worth playing difficult maps for something like that . Everything is well thought out and done in terms of plot and cutscenes. Question: are berserk and vampirism forbidden for Varens, or is it random? In the picture, Varens is before the battle with Brand.
Thank you very much for the map!

I completed the map with the Hero....
Question: Are Berserk and Vampirism forbidden for Varen, or is it random?

All spells are allowed on this map. There's no point in banning "Berserk" because there's the Dwarf Shield. "Vampirism" is found in one of the temples along the way to the first Dwarf town. You probably just missed it. The map is very well thought out, balanced, and polished. All the apparent randomness is actually intentional.

Good day to you!

I completed the map with a hero in 178 days, surprisingly on the first try (I did replay some battles several times). At the beginning, it was difficult only because I started developing Varen incorrectly (I didn't understand what awaited him), but then in the dungeon with the dwarves, the ease of completion completely disappeared...

After reading the discussions, I realized that the map was made much easier, because I have nothing to compare it to - I don't know if this is good or bad, but I think it's just a time-saving measure for players so they don't have to accumulate troops for the assault on the dwarven castle (I took it without Sandro's cloak - I lost a lot, due to the lava dragons).

Overall, I enjoyed the map, thank you to the Author for the effort!

P.S. In Varen's starting location, there is a treasure trove of mages - is it the maximum by default, or is it random (I had 3 phoenixes and 2 stacks of 20+ mages)? I don't know how to kill it without spells, machines, or an army...

To be honest, the map disappointed me a bit. The beginning was interesting – you had to play as two heroes simultaneously. Although Varens couldn't directly help Lorenz, he collected useful resources that were used to build up the city. I liked the second part of the map even more because of the increased difficulty and the mechanics of rebuilding dwellings. Unfortunately, after capturing the Castle and defeating all the main enemy heroes, the game becomes boring and tedious. They don't give you a portal to the city, so after defeating another enemy gnome, you had to immediately run to unexplored areas of the map, and God forbid another enemy runs out of the garrison. And in the last battles, as it seemed to me, the enemy stats were too inflated. Instead of spending a very long time building up my army by skipping days, at some point I just cheated and gave myself more troops, effectively skipping the battle with Brand and Bertrand.

I would give the map a 7/10 – the beginning is interesting, the end is not.