Posts from The ninth stage of the John Van Caneghem tournament.

It’s certainly nice to hear such kind words from such a formidable opponent :).

But I bet 1:7 against you on Spay. So, it turns out you also took me down in the process?

Where, where do you say people place bets? :D But, I was just lucky :smile43:. But I will keep trying:rolleyes:.

Where, where are you saying bets are placed? :D But honestly, I just got lucky :smile43:. But I will keep trying:rolleyes:

Bets were placed in ICQ with Spay :)
On the 21st, I said: Fire isn't playing, so you'll be first (and Spay was just asking about you). Who knew...
And the fact that Fire didn't play, that was lucky for both of you :)

Once again, congratulations on your well-deserved victory!

A short story about a Walkthrough :). After scouting the map, I couldn't find another way except through the Chaos Dungeon. So, I decided to buy a Rogue, as he is the only Hero who can max out the Stealth skill. For some reason, I named him LeSHiJ-MaX. Then, I looked for the shortest path, along which I had to max out Stealth and get through the dragons. I also initially boosted Death magic to create a Ninja with his signature poison ability. But then I abandoned this idea because my path led through the University, where I took Death magic with the "Poison" spell and Life magic with the "Heal" spell (I took Life magic for summoning a ship). I wanted to take Nature magic with "Summoning," but it turned out that it doesn't work on the map. So, I restarted from the University and also took Chaos magic with Haste. I spent a long time save-loading until I got the 3 spells I needed. In parallel, I was leveling up the Darkstorm Sorcerer and the Fiona Druid so that, starting from the captured Castle of Death, I could immediately head towards three Castles at once. An interesting moment in the Walkthrough turned out to be the two Garrisons. In the first one, there were a lot of Air Elementals and a lot of ballistae, and I couldn't figure out how to get through them. But the rules of this tournament helped me))). Studying the map in the editor, I noticed that the first garrison could be bypassed by dragging, which I did. The second garrison was technically easy to pass. I bought a Druid in the tavern nearby and a Mage Staff and a Potion of Disappointment in the forge. The Druid summons fairies first to exhaust the centaurs' arrows and then to bite them, although the battle threatened to be long. But then an interesting episode occurred. I approached the garrison, detached the Rogue, and he suddenly climbed into the garrison. I try to make him go through, but he doesn't. I go into the lineup and move him to the bottom, exit the lineup, and he is already behind the garrison. And I didn't bother with the garrison but simply passed it by dragging, although I bought another Hero, but that wasn't decisive. I captured the Castle of Death and started building ships so that two of them would end up in the water I needed, where a level 1 artifact was floating nearby. While the skeletons were swimming for the artifact, the Rogue rushed for the boots that were lying with the vampires. And then the weakest Hero sailed to Death to simply capture the Castle, thinking that my main Hero would later jump over and punish all the evil creatures and Death Knights. Meanwhile, the Rogue with the boots and the artifact fled to his native Castle. There, on the water, was a yellow portal, and at the exit, a little more than a day's journey away, stood the Barbarian Castle. The Sorcerer and the Druid, who had gained a good level by that time, sailed to the green Castle. I captured the Castle of Death and the Castle of Might in one day, but it turned out to be longer to sail to the Castle of Nature, and I captured it one or two days later. And then I just waited 3 days. That's all my Walkthrough :D.

Well done. I imagined the walkthrough would be like this – simultaneously managing three castles – but I started playing with Warriors. I leveled up two Warriors, a Runner, a Druid, and a Chaos Knight, reached the middle of the map – the yellow portal – and then the tournament time ran out. That’s how it went. But of course, it took me much longer because I play for my own enjoyment. And 21 days:smile54:, I’d also like to watch some videos on how it’s done.

My short story.
I was leveling up a "Runner" hero on the map. And at the same time, I was leveling up a Darkstorm "Fire Guardian," but I didn't really have time to level him up much on the map.
Until level 1-3-1, there were no battles, just the usual running around, collecting chests, and maxing out the GM Stealth and GM Pathfinding skills. Also, I needed to steal the "Wand of Illusion" from the Ifrits because some battles are difficult without it. I took a neutral Chaos hero at 1-3-1, with Darkstorm as a companion. I resurrected him. I defeated some enemies in the vicinity of Chaos (various satyrs), and Darkstorm leveled up a bit. He needed armor for the subsequent destruction of Cyclops and Barbarians with Thunderbirds. I stole regeneration armor with a thief and gave it to Darkstorm. He ran to the Barbarian, destroying everyone along the way, with battles based on regeneration, Immortals, and powerful Chaos magic.
Meanwhile, the "Runner" stole boots and ran to fight the Necropolis hero. Along the way, he defeated 30 Venom hordes, using fairies, illusions, and poison as cover. He killed the Necropolis hero and fled to the captured Chaos town. He ran to kill the Druid. Along the way, he defeated monsters with poison; he couldn't avoid them. And also some minor creatures along the way.
That's it. There weren't any really difficult battles, but if needed, I can attach some replays, although I doubt anyone would be interested... Nothing unusual happened.
I didn't level up three heroes because it didn't make sense in my playthrough: you can only reach the Barbarian with the "Runner." To reach the others, you need much stronger heroes because you have to defeat a lot of monsters along the way, such as Black Dragons and other level 3-4 creatures.
The "Ent" is great; he found a bug in the map editor, and I sometimes like to do that too. :)

Bring on the cartoons, I think they'll be very interesting :)

С 1-2-7.
http://slil.ru/26268033

Cartoons by LeSHiJ-MaX
http://slil.ru/26270841

Due to technical reasons, I'm posting it here instead.

And here’s a brief walkthrough:
Days 1-7: Eric the Shadow gathers all the chests in the area for experience. Darkstorm only gets the stones of knowledge. By the end of day 7, Darkstorm is a 4th-level mage, and Eric is a 10th-level rogue with 3rd-tier stealth and a 5th-rank scout.
1_2_3: Yanova is purchased, and Darkstorm helps her run around the stones of knowledge (on efreets). Eric is a 12th-level rogue with 4th-tier stealth.
1-2-4: Eric steals chests behind the water elementals, becoming a 13th-level rogue (he needs 4462 more experience points to reach grandmaster rogue).
1-2-5: Eric runs past the unicorns to get to a chest.
1-2-6: Eric takes the chest and a stone of knowledge, then heads for the chest at the guard post.
1-2-7: Eric, with 5th-level stealth, captures the gold mine behind the manticores and the gold mine in the green teleport.
1-3-1: Yanova and Darkstorm defeat the nomads and spearmen. Eric runs past the black dragons towards the regeneration armor and the chaos castle.
1-3-2: Darkstorm and Yanova make their way to the tree of knowledge. Eric runs towards the castle.
1-3-3: It’s not possible to take the chaos castle right away, so Eric first aims for the regeneration armor (with it, the chaos castle is captured easily and effortlessly ;-) ). Darkstorm and Yanova hang out near the magic schools.
1-3-4: Eric takes the chaos castle and heads for the boots near the pyramid. Darkstorm and Yanova are defeated by the efreets and end up in the town of Rose (on the turn, the satyrs are killed by them).
1-3-5: Eric, wearing the boots, heads for the red teleport behind the black dragons (he’s already a 15th-level rogue). We buy Kayri, and he, along with Darkstorm and Yanova, visits the stone of knowledge and runs to the tree of knowledge. Also, the leprechaun in the tavern (above the garrisons) buys Hagnar. Hagnar levels up, takes the bag of gold, and is killed by the elves in Rose.
1-3-6: Eric fights the tower of mages and targets two enemy orange heroes. Yanova and her companions clear the area near the castle.
1-3-7: The mages get in the boat. Eric defeats the poisonous creatures that the orange hero merged with. Yanova heads through the desert towards the barbarian castle. Hagnar heads for the chest with the sextant (above the chaos castle).
1-4-1: Eric captures the castle of death and heads for the ship’s log (there’s no boat yet, so there’s no rush).
1-4-2: Hagnar, with the sextant, runs to Rose. Yanova defeats the first group of earth elementals.
1-4-3: The mages are one day away from the drowning man with the level 1 spellbook. Eric runs through the red teleport. Yanova, Darkstorm, and Kayri are one day away from the castle of might. Hagnar runs to the castle of death. The ghosts pass the sextant to Eric.
1-4-4: Eric hangs out at the veterans’ guild, waiting for the mages to arrive. The castle of might is taken. On the turn, the red troops are killed by it.
1-4-5: Eric gets in the boat. It’s one day away from the green territory. Yanova corners the last red hero near the dwarf mines.
1-4-6: Eric lands near the green castle.
1-4-7: Eric captures Tragedy, runs up, and spends the night on the bridge. On the turn, the last red hero (who had previously fled from Yanova) kills himself against Eric. Yanova and her companions gather resources.
2-1-1: We gather resources and wait for the enemy to die on its own. Eric gets in the boat and tries to reach the green castle by sea.
2-1-2: Eric almost reaches the green castle. We exchange all the resources for mercury. On the turn, the enemies die on their own.
Difficult battles: 1) The battle with the poisonous creatures on the bridge before the castle of death: tactic – we summon wolves until the creatures run out of arrows, then we attack and retreat until the regeneration armor heals the health.
2) When capturing the green castle, I used a potion of cold (taken from the poisonous creatures on the bridge) – it cools down the dragon’s breath very well ;-)
By the end of the game, Eric is a 19th-level scout, Yanova is a 10th-level archer, Darkstorm is a 10th-level fire mage, and Kayri is a 6th-level archer.

Cool moments on the map. 1. If you run past the dwelling with Phoenixes, everything is fine. But if you run onto the bridge and stand near them, they will give you about 5000 experience points (correspondingly, with stealth) :D. 2. If you kill Ifrits with the Necromancer's amulet, skeletons can visit the blue tent without a fight. 3. On the first playthrough, I initially looked for a path to the Sylvan faction; there, you can get a boat without fighting the Griffins and sail to the Sylvan faction in 2 days instead of running across the bridges. There were others, but I can't remember them right now :D. Ah, I wish there was another tournament, any tournament :rolleyes:.

Yes, I forgot to ask, I wanted to inquire:
did you like the original map? If so, could you tell me what exactly was removed/modified, who was responsible for it, and what guided them during the editing process? :)
Thank you in advance for your answers.

If there were any changes, that would be interesting to know.

What guided you when making the edits? :)

I just think that some of the restrictions and exceptions remove the charm and excitement of finding some loophole.
I hope that in the next tournament, there will be fewer corrections (if there were any).

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I just think that some of the restrictions and exclusions remove the charm and excitement of finding some loophole.
I hope that in the next tournament, there will be fewer corrections (if there were any). :)

Loopholes are certainly great, but personally, as a fan of direct attacks, I find searching for them difficult :smile35:

I don’t think it’s worth cluttering this thread; it should be moved to the appropriate one. Especially since the official representatives haven’t answered the questions Spaya asked yet.

Exploits are great, but for me, as a fan of direct attacks, finding them seems difficult :smile35:

The “John Van Kanegem” tournament series is not just any tournament; it’s one of the most significant tournaments on XW. Therefore, it’s not desirable to simplify them and make them linear. On the contrary, it should be designed to make people think and not just rely on brute force :smile35:. P.S. As an option, maybe Spaya could be asked to prepare a map for the next tournament (or edit one). He has a lot of experience playing and knows a lot of different tricks. Also, in the main post, he could give a hint about where to look :smile35:. P.S. 2. Don’t kick me too hard; I’m not wearing a helmet today :D.

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Exploits are great, of course, but for me, as a fan of direct attacks, finding them seems difficult :smile35:

+1
Moreover, it's not so much about direct attacks. I find it more interesting to look for strategic solutions than map bugs. Passing through a wall-teleport with guards without a battle – for me, this is a typical map bug. It can probably be used, but I personally am not interested in it...
And walkthroughs like "there I used the spacebar to pass through a garrison, there I used the spacebar to skip a teleport without a fight" – I'm not too interested in that.
There was a simple bug on one map. One of the quest huts, when refusing to complete the quest, gave the player 10000. Money on the map was extremely critical (especially in large quantities). One person used this. I didn't understand his position. He said, I read the scripts, it was written that way, so it was intended. But for me, it's an obvious map bug.
Who is right? I don't know. In some ways, he is right, because such a mistake on the map is a failure of the organizers.
But I'm not too interested in such a game.

The infamous "pulling corpses" out from under monsters (this is an old discussion, I don't want to continue it here, I'm giving it as an example) is also a bug for me. But not of the map, but of the game.
You can say that if the spacebar works the way it works and this gives a certain result on the map, then it is "intended by the developers" and it can and should be used. I have a different point of view on this issue. :)