Auto-translated
My first experience playing Heroes was utterly wild. I didn't find the tutorial among the menus back then :) and bravely dove straight into the single-player scenarios (moreover, I didn't quite understand why they were called "single-player scenarios" or what that even meant). I played on the map set as the first default — "One for All." The version of the game was "The Restoration of Erathia," the very first one, and in the English edition. I was immediately struck by the music and the magnificence of the landscapes. All those piles of treasure, all the colorful magic with fairies, witch huts, leprechauns... I was simply stunned. The only thing that bothered me was the cardboard horse that seemed glued to my cursor. I figured out that it represented the turn. I clicked around. Collected a couple of piles of something sparkling. And then came the crash — a little number "2" appeared under the horse, and I couldn't move anywhere. I had to start the game over)))) Well, I started over. I was a very patient child :D
I figured out how to end the turn. I entered a town and spent a long time admiring the creatures in awe. It was a Tower (at the time, it didn't bother me at all that it sat on a snowy mountain right in the middle of a green meadow). I hired a hero—I don't remember which one—gathered some gargoyles, and attacked the nearest group of elves. For a long time, I thought elves were very tough guys because I only managed to wipe them out on my tenth attempt. Every time, I hired a new hero and sent him along with the starting army to crush those wretched elves)))) Eventually, I defeated them and was very happy. I stumbled upon another Tower nearby (this one had no Fort, so I decided I had encountered a completely different kind of building). I took it using my uber-tactic of endless hero hiring :) :) :) Then I conquered the nearby lands and decided to head for new places. But the exit "outwards" was guarded by a company of a couple dozen Black Knights. I continued hiring heroes and sending them in bunches against the Black Knights. The heroes died stupidly, causing practically no losses to the enemy. I felt a shortage of money. I poked around at unfamiliar keys in combat mode and discovered the auto-battle function. Since I was already quite tired of this hellish meat grinder with the knights, I would hire a new hero, set auto-battle, and go do my own things. I repeated this about twenty times. And then the month of the Rukh birds was announced, and I saw a flock of cute white birds near the exits of both my castles. That's where my "hero stream" came to an end — everyone was shredded the moment they stepped out of the castle. This wasn't the first time I'd encountered a computer player, but at first, I didn't even know they existed)))
Then I started trying to play this map again and again. The town there was random, so very soon I knew all the town types and all the possible hero faces perfectly. Around the fourth town, it dawned on me that I needed to build creature dwellings and stay quietly at home. The epiphany was so bright that I didn't go anywhere at all. I captured one resource mine of each type and sat there, obsessing over my precious creatures. I loved the Castle the most for its angels and crusaders. But by the end of the second month, I hit a major snag — a mean computer arrived and took my castle right off the bat :)))))) It was very frustrating. I decided to play with the scariest-looking creatures. I played as Inferno a few times, but no noticeable results appeared. Finally, after about a week, I found the tutorial scenario and won for the first time))))) And then everything went like clockwork — one map, another, mastering all the races one by one... then for the first time, I learned the power of Town Portal, Fly, and Dimension Door with expert magic... and I became completely hooked on Heroes. Interestingly, the first time I managed to play against a human was around 2003, when I had already abandoned Heroes for a while. Actually, I have no one to play with now either :D And the computers became boring about five years ago, and I've also grown a bit tired of crafting maps for myself.
P.S.: If anyone wants to play online, I'm always up for it :smile13:
It's also been a long time since I've played a 3-player game with humans, about a year and a half. This isn't right, otherwise I'll lose all my practice))) So save me, even if you have to beat me down)))