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Thank you all for the congratulations! I'm in shock at the results :eek: . By my humble calculations, I would have barely made it into the top eight. Either beginners are just lucky, or, as Dima says, the rest just slacked off ;). I'll say in advance that I don't have all the saves (rather, I have them, but they got mixed up with saves from previous walkthroughs), although I sent some to Dirty before the titans and before the "can").
A total lack of offline experience had a huge impact on the overall time it took to complete the map. My scouting wasn't thorough, meaning that halfway to victory, I had to replay many times because some hero was short by half a tile, etc. Many times I felt like giving up on it all, but stubbornness and the desire to show a more or less good result overcame the laziness :)
I played the battle in the cyclops den very poorly, where I lost one sniper and almost all the centaurs. I found out much later what those losses cost me. Jelu spent the night in the medusa den, Bron got in the boat (oh, how I regretted being too lazy to check all the swamp-dwellers for 6 defense, because Vistan with his shooting would have been very useful in the naga bank).
By the phrase "non-standard walkthrough," I meant that because I initially didn't notice the spring near the "can," I immediately discarded the option of taking it with Grindan, since he only gets expert earth at lvl 5, and I couldn't afford to eat experience chests, as I was barely scraping by (I blew 1500 resources on the tenth hero on the first day — am I an idiot or what? :)). Therefore, I decided to live large and take the "can" with a mage with Force Field on the third floor, which is built precisely on day 2. For these purposes, I dug up Daremif, gave her the hat, and put her in the Castle to replenish mana. During scouting, I accidentally figured out that a hero with expert logistics, fired on the first day (for me, this was Moner, who got expert logistics in the gnome den) and bought back in the Necropolis, reaches the main castle just in time. And since I decided to go through the sands, instead of two heroes (one to take the Necropolis and the second the main castle), I sent one Korbak. The runner who was supposed to turn in the gladius for gems became Roland on the pixel, who stayed the night at the seer's hut on the butterfly. The great privilege of fighting the titans went to Orrin, who leveled up on resources near the "can," thereby getting expert shooting.
I took the "can" with a level 1 Darimif with the following troops: 24 snipers (-1 at the cyclops and one each given to Korbak and Jelu), 1 unicorn, 1 wizard and single centaurs. The battle was easy, but very tedious, because I had to generate it so that the wizards cast Mass Slow in the first round, then stand in the corner and cover themselves with a Force Field. Additionally, 2 morale was necessary, as one sniper shot only killed 9-10 griffins. I lost one sniper and the rest of the single units, including the wizard.
The fight with the titans was also easy, but also very tedious: 23 snipers, 1+1 angels, 1 unicorn and single centaurs. The fight came down to blocking the titans with angels, and it was necessary to hit their morale in the first round to kill one stack of genies with them before they were killed by the titans. And then just hit the sniper's morale. But honestly — I struggled a lot with them, then finally decided to give up and spend 2k on wood, thereby pushing Orrin's leadership, which became +3 with the angels. I struggled a bit more (the genie bastards would cast either Stone Skin on the titans, or Prayer, or Air Shield, or some other nasty thing :)) In short, I emerged with 15 snipers, but happy as a clam, and the thought of replaying it just made me sick :).
Jelu captured the empty Barbarian castle, the gladius was turned in for the quest, and Bron with all the artifacts and troops did a victory lap around the entire sea, cleared all the ships, and took the naga bank. I also sweated a bit over the naga bank, because there were almost no single units left, few snipers, and no shooting. Nevertheless, Bron with 18 defense, 15 snipers, 1 angel, 1 griffin and a centaur managed it. 13 snipers remained. Korbak, after receiving all the artifacts and snipers, took the Necropolis, passed the initiative to Luna, who attacked Lord Haart with a few snipers and a titan cuirass; then, after killing his death knights and some ghosts with an archer, she paid her way out and was bought back in the Stronghold, killed Kilgor with 3 snipers, a butterfly and using a Wall of Fire, and stood in the tree to get the quest for gems. By the way, I didn't touch Boragus at all :). Then I dug up Kilgor, who finished off Haart, collected resources on the way to the main castle, broke through the spearmen, thereby saving half a tile for Moner, who was short for taking a pile of gems near the castle Dunwall. The killed Haart was dug up to take the second quest for 22 gems near the Necropolis, killing Clavius beforehand. Then there was the final touch of taking the quest with Xeron, after first killing the devil with Cielka. I was 15k short for the 22k gold quest, so I had to trade resources for money.
If I had the nerves for one more replay, I might have reached DimaAS's result. I lost about 20 gems on building the 3rd floor and bought too many heroes, while ruthlessly trading precious resources for money. But vbn's result is practically unreal for me. Well done!
Thanks to Dirty for the interesting tournament. Due to a lack of time to play full games online, I think this is my first, but far from my last offline tournament:)!
