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Walkthrough description of the 1st inter-portal tournament
"Air Magic" between HeroesWorld and HeroesPortal by vbn
I have written a simple truth before. But I want to repeat it once more. Because, as simple as it may sound, this is the most important point in the game upon which victory depends. So, before starting any offline tournament walkthrough, it is necessary to determine the minimum number of days required to complete the map. Moreover, you must take the absolute minimum number of days, even if at first glance it seems that the map might not be completable in that time, or it would only be possible under certain conditions that cannot be predicted immediately (whether certain neutrals can be destroyed, whether the hero will get a specific combination of skills). For example, suppose we have a starting save where 3 enemy castles must be captured and 3 enemy heroes killed. In this case, one can immediately estimate the minimum number of days (taking into account movement bonuses and spells) needed to run directly in the worst-case scenario to the farthest castle. This number of days is usually the minimum.
In the case of the save provided for the Air Magic tournament, the process of determining the minimum number of days looks as follows. There are 2 ways to capture the Book of Air Magic: by completing a quest or by killing the mages. In both cases, the minimum number of days is 2. In the case of completing the quest, the task would be as follows: it is necessary to hire an Azure Dragon and bring it to the hut; for this, one must learn the Fly spell, which can be done by visiting all obelisks, digging up the Grail, and installing it in the Conflux castle. The only problem is that since the Conflux castle can only be captured on day 2, and the Grail must be installed in it on the same day (after building the Mages' Guild), a tavern cannot be built here. This raises a big question: how to manage to visit the obelisk in the upper left corner of the map on day 2, take the troops needed for capturing scrolls and Pandora's box from the hero who visited the obelisk, learn the Fly spell, and hire an Azure Dragon? In principle, this might all be feasible on day 2, but intuitively I preferred the second option — destroying the mages. Joining titans and wizards, collecting the Mage's Ring artifact, as well as exchanging a green dragon for a bone dragon in the Necropolis converter to reduce the mages' morale to neutral, would allow winning the battle on day 2 with a 100% guarantee. In fact, in my walkthrough, I exchanged the mage ring for passage to Conflux and the green dragon for a Titan's Battle Sword.
So, the most important question — the minimum number of days — is solved. In any case, it will be 100% possible to destroy the mages and obtain the Book of Air Magic.
Next is the question of accumulating the maximum possible sum of stats in 2 days. What is necessary for this? The hero completing a quest for 200,000 experience, visiting the library, obtaining the expert learning skill as early as possible (it is important to do this before completing the quest), visiting the Ancient of Knowledge (preferably after completing the quest), and, of course, as many of the most powerful artifacts as possible. Of all these possibilities, my hero was only able to visit the library and take the 200,000 experience quest. Not all artifacts were collected (meaning 2 uncollected artifacts on the sea totaling +4 to stats). But in reality, this is likely possible, so the actual walkthrough can still be improved.
Well then! The task is perfectly clear, which means half the work is already done. The rest is a matter of technique. Once again, I note the advantage of small maps: they are quite simple to analyze for achieving an ideal result. As far as I know, only the genius of Dmitriy (DmitriyAS) is capable of analyzing large-sized maps.
The next task during map reconnaissance was determining which heroes would join neutral troops. Usually, candidates with the primary Diplomacy skill are first in line. In the provided save, Calch seemed more suitable for this role, as he obtained expert diplomacy earlier than any other hero — already at level 4.
Then it was necessary to determine how to organize the chains of heroes by the end of day 1. I handled this satisfactorily, but far from optimally. Only one thing was clear: 1 hero must get in a boat, 1 must get closer to Conflux to take it on day 2, 1 to Necropolis (or capture it), and 1 hero had to be directed to join the Titans (he also became the main hero, leveled up for the sum of stats). The other 4 possible heroes + those placed inside castles and dismissed on day 1 are heroes intended to support the construction of chains. I also managed these remaining heroes not in the best way during the walkthrough. Well, in any case, despite all those shortcomings, victory was achieved, although the result undoubtedly still allows for improvement.
For the role of the hero destroying the mages, Jelar was chosen, as he fastest obtains advanced wisdom and advanced Water magic (to learn Forgetfulness), expert Earth magic (Slow), and advanced navigation (to run around the sea, though maybe that wasn't necessary). There was another option with Labeta and her leveling pathfinding, but in the end, in my opinion, it proved unsuitable.
I decided to send Luna to Conflux so she could destroy hundreds of peasants with a Fire Wall, but any other hero would have sufficed, as assembling the Horn of Plenty unexpectedly entered my plans, and Luna's army in this case was sufficient for destroying peasants, so the Fire Wall was not needed.
To Necropolis — Moner, as the fastest of all heroes available at the start. He was capable of capturing this castle on day 1 (although in the final walkthrough even he did not fulfill the planned tasks — how sharply the tactics changed in the middle of the run).
And finally, the diplomat-librarian hero, as is now clear — Calch.
All other heroes are the fastest at the start. By the end of day 2, I used all heroes with MP not lower than 1760. Oh, how I don't want to write a step-by-step walkthrough; I keep putting off this moment, but it seems I will have to, so I am sitting down to reload 270 saves to describe all this.
Day one.
01. Jonah-01 collects gold and chests around the Tower, joins and takes gremlins from their dwelling and brings them close to the capital.
02. We buy Josephine-02, then Jelar; we build an upgrade for gremlins and upgrade them. Josephine visits the crypt, takes gems and gold.
03. We buy Jelar-03, then Dragon. We dismiss Jonah. To save MP, Jelar takes 1 step down and only after that takes Pandora's box.
04. We buy Dragon-04, then Pir-05, then Calch. Pir takes troops from Josephine, hires 1 djinn in the dwelling
05. We buy Calch-06, then Dessa. Calch gets +1000 experience in the stone of knowledge, Pir passes him the ballista and troops, while she opens the passage guardian and visits the tent. Before Pir was dismissed, she still had MP for at least 1 step. Here it would have been more sensible to use Dessa instead of her, and Pir for another purpose. Well, what can you do...
06. Calch destroys 44 gold golems for 10,000 gold with 79 master gremlins, a wizard, a ballista, and a djinn. The djinn distracted the golems, while the gremlins and wizard shot at him only under blessing. Thus, the killing of about 14 out of 44 golems fell to the ballista.
07. Calch speeds up at the spring thanks to dendroids, 2 imps, and magogs, and reaches expert diplomacy exactly on time. Thanks again to Kostya for the wonderful map. Imagine, even the amount of experience for leveling was provided for. I note that the Spring is on sand, so you have to choose movement horizontally or diagonally correctly here.
08. We buy Dessa-07, who takes all troops from Calch except the ballista and gives them to the approaching Dragon.
09. Calch crashes into the tavern, and Dragon returns all troops to the capital.
10. We buy Shakti-08, Tiraxor-09, then Erdamon. Tiraxor takes troops (1 djinn + 1 upg. grem. + 1 grem. + 1 grem. + 1 grem. + 104 trogl.) and attacks 3 gold dragons guarding 10,000 gold. Losses were 3 grem. + 1 upg. grem. Battle screen and save are attached. Thanks to tactics, possible morale for troglodytes, and djinn spells, it was quite easy not to lose a single djinn or troglodyte. The best djinn spell for troglodytes is blessing. In the next round, morale for troglodytes would be suitable, as well as frenzy on them, possibly executioner, luck, prayer, etc. My 104 troglodytes dealt 632 damage to the dragons. Here, as I recall, blessing + luck worked. But there are many options. Besides this, in one of the runs, I hit the dragons with the same djinn, troglodytes and upg. gremlin, and golems instead of gremlins, as well as a ballista. But in the end, I decided to save on golems and do without the ballista. Screen is also attached. Troglodytes dealt 589 damage there.
11. We buy Calch-10, Gem-11, then Grindan.
12. Shakti takes troops from Tiraxor and gives them to Jelar, who attacks the naga bank. Troglodytes + gremlins after the wizard's slow easily and without losses destroy all nagas (screen and save are attached).
13. Gem passes troops from Jelar to Calch, and he first joins 18 griffins, then 11 djinns. After this, Gem takes all troops back, speeding up Calch on a djinn, while she attacks the dragon dwelling and, of course, buys 1 dragon, then passes all troops (11 djinns + 1 dragon + 1 wizard + 104 trogl. + 77 upg. gremlins + 4 golems + 1 gremlin + ballista + tent), except griffins, to Jelar.
14. Jelar destroys mummies without losses, and then with the same tactics — the golems in the pyramid (saves are attached, losses — 4 golems and 1 gremlin). The battle tactic consists of:
a) the wizard casts blessing in the first round, then gremlins deal 196 damage;
b) golems, a gremlin, and a troglodyte cover upg. gremlins and the wizard so as not to attract golems, while the dragon and djinn distract them;
c) the downside is that with a dragon in the army, morale became -1, but still conducting the battle with a dragon seemed easier; even when the dragon missed a turn due to bad morale, golems didn't kill it, and the tent healed it;
d) troglodytes hit full stacks of golems after removing retaliation with gremlins and golems;
e) djinns and the dragon also kill a significant part of the golems from attacks and retaliation.
15. We buy Erdamon-12, then Moner. Jelar gives Erdamon the dragon, wizard, and 10 djinns, and he himself gets in... Oh gods! Gem forgot to summon the ship while standing in the multi-way portal... Well done... Anyway, Jelar still gets in the boat. Erdamon destroys high elves, picking up a chest and gold along the way, and captures Rampart, where a Tavern is built.
16. In Tower we buy Grindan-13, in Rampart — Moner-14, then Luna + Gelu. Moner takes troops from Erdamon, destroys and hires halflings, visits the Flag, destroys Pegasi, visits the Flag again, hires 2 pegasi for the quest, collects chests, and attacks 3 phoenixes guarding the Speed Boots (losses — all halflings).
17. In Rampart we buy Gelu-15, then Dragon, for buyout tomorrow (wastefully revealed him in the tavern, eventually lost 100 valuable MP that would have been very useful tomorrow). An error is made in that neither now nor later are elves bought to upgrade them into snipers. Gelu takes troops from Moner, speeds up Gem on a djinn and gives the Boots to Calch. It happened that heroes Gelu and Gem (boat summon spell) were played completely incompetently — didn't buy snipers, organized the transfer of the Forgetfulness spell to Jelar in some twisted way. Moreover — the biggest mistake — had to dismiss the wrong heroes forming chains instead of those who should have been. Real-time pressure really hit. Yes, I originally planned it differently. Although in principle, this would not affect Calch's final sum of stats. You'd have to redo everything then.
18. Unnecessary heroes (actually, very necessary ones) who had not yet been dismissed are dismissed.
19. In Rampart we buy Luna-16, in Tower — Voy-17. Luna runs the shortest path to Conflux. Voy learns boat summon at the Sanctuary and gets in a ship. Grindan captures the lighthouse.
Day 1 of the game is over (save attached). Total heroes bought: 17, including Calch — 2 times (once after fleeing). 17 heroes participated in roles, including Jonah as starting hero. Total spent on buying heroes — 42,500 gold.
In roles:
01. Jonah (dismissed)
02. Josephine (dismissed)
03. Jelar
04. Dragon (dismissed)
05. Pir (dismissed)
06. Calch (dismissed)
07. Dessa (dismissed)
08. Shakti (dismissed)
09. Tiraxor (dismissed)
10. Calch
11. Gem
12. Erdamon
13. Grindan
14. Moner
15. Gelu
16. Luna
17. Voy
Day two.
01. Jelar takes the Spellcaster's Necklace at sea (lost 6 gremlins). Gem takes all troops and artifacts from him and gives them to Gelu (the thing is, one hero in a chain should have handled this, but I used two). Gelu passes everything to Calch.
02. Calch joins 1 stack of medusas, visits the Fountain, kills one stack of medusas, Fountain, kills the Crystal Dragon (losses — 30 troglodytes + 11 medusas; surely fewer could have been lost, but there was no time to replay), Fountain.
03. Gelu takes all troops back, visits medusa warehouses and gnome treasury, passes all troops and artifacts to Calch and is ignominiously dismissed, without ever replenishing the kingdom's troops with excellent snipers.
04. Erdamon takes the dragon from Moner, gives it to Calch, who exchanges the dragon for a Titan's Battle Sword, joins wizards and visits the library. After Erdamon takes all his troops and artifacts, Calch flees from snipers to the tavern.
05. We buy Calch-01 (Tower), Jonah-02 (Rampart), then Pikedram.
06. Jonah passes griffins and pegasi from Erdamon to Moner, and all other troops and artifacts to Gem.
07. Gem visits the griffin conservatory with a loss of 1 gremlin, and attacks utopia (yes, of course, leveling in the conservatory and then visiting utopia should have been done by at least Gelu, but not her; the only thing Gem did after utopia was teach Jelar forgetfulness).
08. We buy Pikedram-03 (Tower), then Torosar. Pikedram takes 6 gremlins from Gem so they wouldn't be killed in utopia, to run across snow without penalty with numerous heroes.
09. Gem visits utopia (save attached), losing all gremlins, troglodytes and 2 angels. Just a terrible taking of utopia... Then she teaches Jelar forgetfulness and gives him 2 angels, and Pikedram — titans.
10. Pikedram destroys the magic dragon, and Moner passes through the quest guardian, then captures Necropolis.
11. We buy Torosar-04 (Tower), Dessa-05 (Tower), then Tunar. Dessa with Titans breaks through devils and garrison to complete the quest with gogs. Torosar brings her two gogs, Dessa completes the quest, and returns troops and artifacts to Torosar.
12. We buy Tunar-06 (Tower), Pir-07 (Tower), then Fiur. Tunar passes titans from Torosar to Pir. Pir breaks through garrison to take the sulfur ring.
13. We buy Fiur-08 (Tower), then Shakti. Fiur hires 1 troll.
14. We buy Dragon-09 (Tower), then Labeta. Dragon takes troops from Fiur, hires fanatics and makes them wizards, and carries the troll toward the corresponding passage guardian.
15. We buy Shakti-10 (Tower), then Tiraxor. Shakti continues Dragon's relay in bringing the troll to Grindan (this is what wrong chain organization means, so many extra heroes were bought).
16. Grindan is let through the guardian, and he joins 1 mage with a Spellcaster's Cloak, and gives all this to Shakti.
17. We buy Labeta-11 (Tower), then Ciel. Labeta takes the mage and artifact from Shakti, buys 2 djinns and gives everything to Tunar.
18. We buy Ciel-12 (Tower), then Brissa. Ciel carries troops to Rampart.
19. We buy Tiraxor-13 (Rampart), Gretchen-14 (Rampart), then Vistan. Moner buys 2 spirits in Necropolis and gives troops to Tiraxor.
20. Gretchen takes troops from Ciel, breaks through hydras and exchanges all unnecessary resources at the bazaar.
21. We buy Vistan-15 (Rampart), Brissa-16 (Rampart), then Josephine and Inteus. Brissa takes all troops and artifacts from Gretchen and Tiraxor and hires wizards in the dwelling.
22. Vistan hires 2 drakes and takes all troops and artifacts from Brissa.
23. We buy Josephine-17 (Rampart), Ignatius-18 (Rampart), then Pasissa. Josephine takes all troops and artifacts from Pir and Vistan and gives them to Ignatius, who in turn gives them to Luna, after beating the Abundant Crystal Cloak from monsters.
24. Luna captures Conflux.
25. We buy Pasissa-19 (Conflux), Corbak-20 (Tower), Inteus-21 (Tower). All this is for transferring all troops and artifacts from Conflux to Jelar and into Tower.
26. We buy Moandor-22 (Tower). Honestly, it doesn't matter who to buy anymore, just to transfer the troops needed for the experience quest into Tower.
27. Voy takes some troops and artifacts from Jelar to take the naga bank and shipwreck at sea, then, returning all this back (together with the found Cyclops King Tunic), exchanges the horn of plenty in the Hut for 50,000 gold.
28. We buy Jeddit-23 (Conflux), Lorelei-24 (Conflux), Clancy-25 (Tower), Serena-26 (Tower), Xiron-27 (Tower). Jeddit buys 2 stat artifacts on the black market, and Lorelei, Clancy, and Serena carry them in a chain to Tower. Several heroes in the chain were bought for nothing. But now it doesn't matter. Nothing concerns us anymore except the battle with mages.
29. Calch stops 1-2 steps before the Hut on a gremlin. Xiron brings him the troops necessary for completing the quest, and Calch completes the experience quest, after which his sum of primary stats becomes exactly 86!
30. Jelar 15-0-10-31 mana, expert Water and Earth magic, destroys 999 mages with the following army: 3 titans + 13 wizards + 1 mage + 2 angels + 14 djinns, with a golden bow and wagon, without the Mage's Ring. Brief description of the battle (screen and save attached):
a) wizards must cast slow in the 1st round, which happens quite often if replaying the battle;
b) mages must not be allowed to reach the wagon in the first half of the fight (so that shots last), and it is desirable to preserve all titans and wizards; fast flying units — djinns and angels — are used to distract mages;
c) it's necessary for mages' morale to stay within norm, because sometimes it drops too often and the battle must be replayed; but their morale, I think, in the middle or closer to the lower bound of the game mechanics percentage is not critical;
d) cast forgetfulness in the first round, then slow, and further as any of these spells are removed from mages (including if wizards don't cast), apply the disappeared spell again;
e) plus also that djinns several times, and wizards, can cast blessing, accuracy, prayer, frenzy, eventually.
The Book of Air Magic is ours! Victory!
Day 2 of the game is over (save attached). Total heroes bought: 27. 35 heroes total, including 8 from day 1. Total spent on buying heroes — 67,500 gold.
In roles:
01. Calch
02. Jonah
03. Pikedram
04. Torosar
05. Dessa
06. Tunar
07. Pir
08. Fiur
09. Dragon
10. Shakti
11. Labeta
12. Ciel
13. Tiraxor
14. Gretchen
15. Vistan
16. Brissa
17. Josephine
18. Ignatius
19. Pasissa
20. Corbak
21. Inteus
22. Moandor
23. Jeddit
24. Lorelei
25. Clancy
26. Serena
27. Xiron
TOTAL for the whole game: 44 heroes bought, including Calch — 3 times (twice after fleeing). 35 heroes participated in roles. Total spent on buying heroes — 110,000 gold.
