Posts from General discussion about Heroes of Might and Magic II. Auto-translated

Well, there’s no point in replaying on the Bishop difficulty, as I’ve already completed all castles on the King difficulty. The result is 13-20 days. The worst thing is playing as the Beaver; that’s where I get the worst results. I’ve also noticed that the computer-controlled Beaver in this game is the weakest.
I keep asking this because it’s a bit disappointing that my results are so modest. If the final score included a penalty for, say, revealing the map (-10 points), then it might not be so upsetting.
But overall, I’m glad that such wonderful players are still playing the second game, and of course, the first one too.

I would venture to suggest that, on average, it is impossible to complete the map within the given timeframe, even when utilizing all the possibilities of an offline tournament game (periodically revealing the map, replaying battles, "discovering" heroes, generating computer actions). The key is to capture castles without heroes and engage in battles inside them (magic will be restored by morning).
P.S. A tournament is starting soon. I invite you to participate!

Okay, I understand that sometimes the AI makes different moves, and you can choose the best one for it. But usually, it's not that simple – you can try 100 times, and 100 times the AI will make the same move, not the one you want. And you need to somehow provoke it to make the move you need. As I understand it, this is still achieved only with legal methods and tricks, and not by drawing the desired move for the opponent in the editor, right? No, of course not. Otherwise, in the same Hot Spot, you could force a Warlock hero to split into phoenixes, killing half of them in the process.
Thanks for the invitation; if there's an opportunity, I'll try.

I once saw at Slagfest how a Warlock attacked a Barbarian CASTLE (not a hero!!!) and was defeated. And if you generate this situation intentionally, you can achieve a lot. The main thing is not to expose yourself in the FIELD to a computer opponent with a full army, and also not to expose the reinforcement of additional troops to computer opponents (for example, they leave the castle with dragons, liches, vampires, mummies, and skeletons. And on the fourth day, they upgrade zombies and bring them in). The main question is: what to do with the Knight and the Sorceress. You need to engage the Knight in battle inside the castle. This shouldn't be too difficult. And somehow, with collective efforts, defeat the Sorceress, maybe by sending out a couple of mages with gargoyles and archers (2 Warlock archers = 4 elves or 30 butterflies, and there are also buffs for magic power and experience on the map. That is, you can realistically get a magic power of 5, then 2 archers can take out 50 butterflies, or 6 elves, or 4 druids, or 2 unicorns, or!!! 1 phoenix!!!). Of course, it would be nice to make the computers fight each other a little, but this requires persistent generation.

In this scenario, there is very little money, as is typical for small maps. Therefore, I definitely wouldn't spend 2500 for 4 Elves; it's better to spend it on a Phoenix. When I played as a Knight, I left the Pikemen, took Archers, and the Sorceress didn't seem to attack my hero. I put the hero in the Castle and could force her to go up instead of attacking the Castle. Only then could I open the map and capture something, like the Sorceress's Castle.
With Zombies, it's better to go for the Sorceress's Castle in the first week rather than rushing to help the main hero.
In general, there are very few quiet, peaceful scenarios for calm development. These include Beltway, Good versus Evil, Teleports, Overlord, and Tundra. Some medium-difficulty scenarios are simply a quiet horror. I couldn't complete Undead Armies as a Wizard on King difficulty for a long time. I finally managed it by sheer luck, managing to defend against the Knight and capture the Sorceress's Castle on the 8th day. Otherwise, in every other scenario, the Sorceress hangs out with 100 goblins she has looted, the Knight has a decent army, but you can't build your own Castle, and the second hero is killed without an army. In general, it's even more challenging than Pyramids.

On Slagfest, there are 6 castles and 2 gold mines. By day 6 or 7, when there are at least 4 castles, the income will be sufficient to use a couple of heroes to lure out mana :))) and weaken the main forces.
Regarding the zombies, the idea is correct and strong, although direct damage magic or ballistics would be helpful, but these are just details.

To Ergon: it would be better to put quotes in quotation marks, otherwise I spent a long time figuring out where I knew the text of the message from. Regarding generation: during the 5 days of gameplay, I chose: on the 1st day - how 4 companions would join, on the 2nd day - 2, on the 3rd day - 3. And I replayed the battle between the Sorceress and the Knight about 300 times. P.S. And green dragons, when defending a castle from a Warlock, first of all, kill their own, and secondly, it seems that on the 3rd turn they have no one to attack at all - they skip their turn!!!

I apologize; I should have made the quote more presentable.
I just can't bring myself to play against the computer and then open the map for myself, generate the turn I need, and then admire my results. So, when I get to the place where you have nothing, I have plenty. Okay, Beltway, I couldn't complete it in 4 days, but I did it in 5-6 days, conquering all the castles. But with Mountain King, there are no empty castles nearby, so I don't have enough goblins to take them. I somehow manage to build 2 beavers in 2 different directions to capture 2 castles on the 7th-8th day. And even then, on the 6th day, I go with 3 druids, 4 elves, 23 sprites, and 27 centaurs to attack the beaver, and he attacks me, even though he's strong. He didn't calculate his strength with his 65 goblins, 16 orcs, 4 ogres, and a couple of wolves. And it's like that all the time. I couldn't break through to the Warlock by the end of the 2nd week; the hero there is too strong with a great army and already has spells. I struggled for about 2.5 hours, gave up on that scenario, and that's it.

Added 7 hours 49 minutes ago
How do I check my game version? Besides PoL Gold, nothing is written.
And what do I do with the map (the 2nd file in the save)? I thought it was specifically for scouting, but it's just a regular Minerals map. The save file opens, but the map is dark, except for a few meters around the castle. Please don't laugh at my noobishness.

2Ergon: You can check the version this way: press F4, then go to Help > About.

Thanks, it seems like version 2.1 now. I just need to learn how to use the scouting feature.

Place the map in the Maps folder within the Heroes 2 directory. Yes, the Minerals map should be there. Then, you can open it in the editor and take a close look.
Save the game in the Games folder and load it. Next, use a cheat to open the map and see what resources are available. Use a cheat to acquire the desired army and infinite turns, and explore the map. You can also run a program by my fellow gamer, AlexSpl (whom I invite to participate in the Heroes gathering on May 2nd in Moscow), but I won't say what it's for because that would be an indirect hint for completing the game. Then, think about how much gold you can collect and what you need to do to achieve that. Next, plan the optimization of routes, chains, and speed boosts. Then, do a rough playthrough, which can be done with the map open (it's advisable to save either manually or with autosave enabled). After that, analyze this playthrough, remember the behavior of the AI, and think about improvements. Then, depending on the situation, either start the final playthrough and refine it (don't forget to save every turn) or do another open playthrough, trying to implement the ideas that arose after analyzing the rough playthrough. Then, take a break for a few days, reflect, and make the final push. Don't forget to save!!!

Thank you, I understand. I just didn't know the cheat codes, but I found them in the Heroes school section, specifically in Catch's scouting topic. I explored the map quite a bit, but I don't have many ideas yet. As I understand it, it's not forbidden to finish the game early, right?

Up to 141? But the goal of the game in this tournament is not to complete the map, but to earn the maximum amount of gold. And each day with a castle on the map adds at least 1000 gold.

I understand that, but there's another problem here – you need to not only collect gold but also fight. And that's much harder than just fighting. Should you build armies or not? Yes, it's a difficult task.

The whole point is to compare the costs of building up and acquiring an army with the income generated from it.
P.S. It's best to discuss issues directly related to the tournament in the tournament thread. But remember: until the tournament is over, discussing walkthroughs or any nuances that could serve as hints for participants is strictly prohibited!