I recently finished playing
"Jedi story". This masterpiece can be found here:
http://www.heroesportal.net/maps.php?search=jedi+story (there's also a thread about this map on the forum). I haven't encountered another map that is as
mind-bending as this one (and I hope I won't have to). I'm curious: if any of you have played it, please share your impressions! In short: if you want a long and challenging experience, if you're looking for something more than just "easy wins" and brutal battles, then this map is for you! You'll face armies of thousands of level 7 monsters and tens of thousands of smaller monsters! And there are also hidden artifacts, secret passages, and the need to find several objects using the editor...
However, there is also a benefit: I significantly improved my tactical skills. Without them, it's impossible: in the early stages, the enemies have a significant advantage in strength – their skills and troops are much better. In almost every battle (excluding neutral creatures), I had to think carefully, try different approaches, until I found the most successful one. One of the first battles against the blue faction lasted almost half an hour; my archers ran out of ammunition (has anyone else experienced that often?)! The total time to complete the map was the longest in all my years of playing "Heroes": 29 months! In the end, I had 5500 archangels!
Before "Jedi story," I also played
"Gift-2001". The map is difficult, but I decided to try it after reading the discussion on the HeroesPortal forum. Interestingly, everyone had their own way of playing. In the end, I developed my own strategy: all my main enemies died of their own accord! I could have defeated some of them (I tried, in particular, the brown faction), but the losses would have been too great, so I didn't.
By the way, if there isn't a thread for "Walkthroughs of single-player (NON-standard) maps" yet, we could create one to ask questions when we get stuck. You do play single-player maps sometimes, for a change of pace, right?